Wicked’s Fame Still Burning

As popular as Wicked is today, the show wasn’t as astounding from the start as playwrites, producers and actors made it out to be. When it first did previews in San Francisco, the reviews mixed. When it moved to New York, the reveiws didn’t change, even with actor changes and set design. For The New York Times’ Ben Brantley, the story carried some weight with its key players, Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda and Idina Mezel as Elphaba (the latter who won a Tony Award), but he also said that if it weren’t for its stars, Wicked would be ‘a bloated production that might otherwise spend close to three hours flapping its oversized wings without taking off.’

But before any other reviewers could say anything else, the fans got a hold of the show and overwhelmed those professional reviews with some of their own. It became an audiences’ show, as tour would eventually open up in Tokyo, London, Melbourne, Australia, Stuttgart, Germany and other US cities to break box office records, pick up a total of three Tony Awards and show off some of today’s brightest stars. So the story became popular, just like Glinda sings to Elphaba in the story, and Wicked tickets continued to sell out to crowds across the country and world. See for yourself what all the fuss is about.

Posted in Uncategorized on August 28, 2009

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