Wicked the Musical playing in 4 Cities

Wicked the Musical, the musical theater sensation, is currently playing in four North American cities Chicago, home of Wicked the Musical; Los Angeles, another permanent show; New York; and the touring show, which is playing now in Toronto.

The Wicked the Musical show has an excellent website for its New York shows at www.wickedthemusical.com. They have great bios on the Wicked cast, like Ana Gasteyer and Kate Reinders, who play the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, and the Good Witch of the North, Glinda. Other parts of the page inlude directions to Wicked’s NY home, the Girshwin Theater, and sections on the Wicked creative imagery and a merchandise store.

Tickets are going from $100 to $250 on StubHub’s Wicked Tickets forum. The StubHub Wicked Tickets forum allows fans to buy and sell tickets with each other, so you can get Wicked tickets to Wicked the musical even when they’re sold out.

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 30, 2006 - Post a comment

Mo Rocca’s presidential casting call

Mo Rocca has weighed in on the new Glinda-Elphaba staged duet for Wicked the Musical, and it’s the Bush twins.

“I met the Bush twins during Inauguration Week in January 2005 and my mixed feelings only got more mixed. Hard-partying Jenna (of New York Post ‘Jenna and Tonic’ fame) seemed intoxicatingly fun. She was friendly and had an easy laugh. Barbara, the supposedly demure art student from Yale, was darker, though, almost mean. She stood alone. I walked over to her, extended my hand - and she just looked at it. I wasn’t offended. How many times had she been hurt before?”

And those troubled youngsters could really connect to their roles in Wicked, apparently. Read Mo Rocca’s full article on Wicked the Musical here.

This surreal breed of deadpan is one of the Reasons Mo Rocca is one of my favorite comedians. While I don’t know much about his standup, he’s probably my favorite contributor to  NPR’s weekend news quiz show, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell me!” Hi-larious. Check out Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me’s website here, where you can hear back episodes on Real Audio.

And be sure to check out StubHub’s Wicked Tickets forum for the latest in showtimes and show prices in your area.

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 28, 2006 - Post a comment

Wicked the Musical video montage

This great video montage of Wicked the Musical has been posted on YouTube.com, covering the show’s really amazing music, drama, acting, and scenery in its wide sweeping shots. It opens up with “The Wizard and I,” and a great rendition of it at that, and then moves on to “Popular,” (My favorite) and others, closing with the show-stopping “Defying Gravity.” It’s a very well-cut fan montage (though lord knows how they got the cameras in there), and a great teaser for the show.

And the touring show will be moving to Baltimore, Maryland in January of next year, the opener being on January 24. The venue is the Hippodrome at the beautiful France-Merrick Performing Arts Center. StubHub is selling tickets to all events at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center–give the Hippodrome at France-Merrick Performing Arts Center tickets page a look for other events playing in the near future. More on this move in coming posts, but for now the touring Wicked the Musical show is in Toronto, and will be stopping in Providence for a month before moving on to Baltimore.

StubHub is selling Wicked the Musical tickets online at its Wicked the Musical forum, where you can buy tickets to its permanent shows and any of its North American touring shows.

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 26, 2006 - Post a comment

Wicked The Musical vs. Wicked the Book

 

 

This reviewer compared Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked to Stephen Schwarz’s musical adaptation, and the musical came out on top. Surprising to someone such as myself who enjoyed the book so much, but his points were well-taken. Mostly, the reviewer “Yuling” enjoyed the way the musical polished out some of the otherworldly literary red-herrings present in Maguire’s novel: “I thought the idea/plot was creative, but there were tons of rabbit trails that led to nowhere. It was pretty trippy at times (almost like Alice in Wonderland), … I thought the musical was a better story/experience as compared to the book. The characters and the humor was just plain fun. So if you can still catch it before it leaves TO, go for it.”

Post your comments on Yueling’s site–I think that those trials in Maguire’s book really made it something of an total and Orphic creation, but on the other hand, I can see what he means by polishing the story into a more single arc, which is exactly what adding music to a story will do.

So throw in your two cents, and if you’re looking for tickets to Wicked the Musical, check out StubHub’s Wicked the Musical tickets page for sold out shows, where Wicked fans buy and sell tickets.

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 24, 2006 - Post a comment

Your own homemade Ruby Slippers from Wicked the Musical

Get out your needle and thread, your thimble and your… sequins, and get those clicking heels warmed up.

Too much? Well I have to say, this is why they invented the internet. Chloe Bates, a teenage fashion entrepreneur, started a company earlier this year called “makebelieveland.com“, in which she sells costumes and patterns for costumes she designs, as well as… ruby slippers. And emerald slippers. That’s a collection pictured above from Chloe’s Wizard of Oz ruby slippers line.

Written up on her site is a charming press release about how she came to form the company–it’s very well-written, and the website is cute. And definitely pink.

She was apparently making her own ruby slippers for sale, as she does with much of her stuff, but the demand grew too large and she now sells the instructions online for $6 a pop. So with a little work and a lot of sequins… there’s no place like home. Check out Chloe’s homepage for Dorothy’s ruby slippers here, and see for yourself. Her Halloween costumes are great as well, she’s got a little pumpinhead one for kids.

And if you’re looking for somewhere to go when you get all fancied up in your Wicked the Musical ruby slippers from makebelieveland.com, look on StubHub.com for the latest low prices on sold-out tickets: StubHub’s Wicked the Musical tickets page–where fans buy and sell tickets.

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 15, 2006 - Post a comment

Harry Potter meets Wicked the musical

I found a charming piece of fan fiction online about J. K. Rowling’s Hermione Granger from the globally famous “Harry Potter” series, in which Hermione auditions for the part of Elphaba, the “Wicked” witch of the West from Wicked the musical based off of Gregory MacGuire’s novel Wicked. Read the full text of “The Dark Arts — Defying Gravity” ’s first chapter.It pits Hermione and Cho against each other for the role of Elphaba, and I think really captures the feel of Hermione’s character from the novels, her uncertainties and her dedication to her work:

“You really want to do this? You’ll have to practice all the time, and performances are almost every night,” Ginny warned.
“I know that, Ginny. I just really want to do something special, something that means I’ll stop being ‘library girl’ and start being… me.” Hermione stared out of the window of the Hogwarts Express, watching the scenery go by.
“I think Cho Chang is planning on auditioning, too,” Ginny replied.
“Good for her, she’d make a great Galinda.” Hermione’s remark confused Ginny, but she continued to try to change Hermione’s mind.
“You’ll have to paint yourself green!”
“It’s a simple spell. You really should audition, too. You’d be good at theatre,” Hermione suggested, but Ginny shook her head.

And the idea of witches trying out to play witches… brilliant.

Anyways, read the full text and give the author some feedback–I’m sure he/she would appreciate it.

And for those of you who yearn to get closer to Wicked just like Hermione, I found what looks like Kristen Chenoweth’s (Glinda the “Good” witch) livejournal page. Especially “if you’re cute”. Odds of this being for real? Slight. Odds of me getting a dinner date with a former West Wing actress? Suddenly better than zero. High five.

And then there’s the time-tested approach, the reason that everyone wants to be involved with Wicked the Musical, which is of course Wicked the Musical itself. StubHub is selling tickets to all the north American showings of Wicked right now, and the tour is still making its way around the country. Check out the forum for great deals from other fans on sold out shows!

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 12, 2006 - Post a comment

Who’s Watching Wicked the Musical?

Get excited.

Everybody and their AIM buddies is watching Wicked the Musical. Good lord.

Because Wicked is on tour across the United States and permanently stationed in Chicago, LA, and New York City, as well as a several-times-extended stay in Toronto, Canada, and London, England, it’s created what one might consider a large enough population to do effective population sampling. So today we’re going to see what unafiliated people around the world are saying about the Wicked phenomenon.

This frenetic, web-happy youngster was brought from emotional peaks to their attendent valleys, experiencing in this her first musical both high comedy and high tragedy, and connecting with her mother who brought her to the show probably as a result of that deep emotional engagement. A cute site for parents and kids to take a peek at.
This jaded Londoner was absolutely thrilled by the London production of Wicked the Musical, enough to make a conscious decision to commit as much of it as possible to memory, to make modern art with it, to figure out who the cast was, to… essentially, do what normal people do when they enjoy a musical or event like Wicked. See? I said he was jaded.

And this absolutely die-hard fan from Toronto has seen the show lord knows how many times, she can identify changes in the gift shop’s merchandise, for pete’s sake. She has incredibly detailed reviews of every song in the show, and has a great group of friends to talk with about her favorite parts in the show.

In other words, fans of Wicked the Musical are everywhere and they’re over the top wild about the show. So if bandwagons are your thing or you’re getting curious as a witch’s cat–forgive me–tickets to all the North American shows are onsale right now on StubHub’s Wicked the Musical tickets page, where Wicked superfans buy and sell tickets.

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 8, 2006 - Post a comment

Wicked the Musical online

Found this online, a broadway quiz that determines “which broadway character you are”. Forget what got me a Glinda The Good Witch, but give it a shot yourself. It’s an entertaining little game, but I do have a predisposition for cheesy things. So it goes.

I found a wonderful human interest story online as well about a woman who took her niece to Wicked the musical as a birthday present, and some of her friends arranged for backstage passes. She’s got a picture of her neice horsing around on the fantastical Wicked set, could get one a little jealous. People’s journals online about their visits to Wicked are really great testaments to the show, everyone raves about it and breaks out their strongest adjectives.

Google’s BlogSearch function is a great way to get tapped into all the other Wicked fans out there, new converts and old proselytites. Read a few and see what all the fuss is about.

Too much fun! Too much fun! If you can’t take it no more, see Wicked in person get Broadway tickets to Wicked the musical at StubHub, where fans buy and sell tickets.

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 6, 2006 - Post a comment

More Videos from Wicked the Musical


I found this great video about Wicked the Musical by I think the BBC. It’s more comprehensive than Universal’s trailer, and has longer song samples. The background music is “popular”, which is dangerously catchy.

And the videos for Wicked the Musical aren’t limited to professional productions. Its huge popularity has motivated people to create their own little powerful slideshows and movies. I really like this minimalist Wicked Musical slideshow, obviously polished by a fan with a good collection of photos garnered from the net.

This sort of ingenuity is right in line with what StubHub does, helping fans connect to each other online. Tickets to Wicked the Musical are available online at the StubHub Wicked tickets page for both the touring and the home stage companies in various cities.

Permalink - Posted in Uncategorized on November 2, 2006 - Post a comment