Dallas first city to get ‘Wicked’ Broadway touring show since pandemic
Dallas is a milestone on the tour of a landmark musical.
When it premiered on Broadway in October 2003, Wicked was an instant hit and the fifth highest stage musical of all time. We’re talking about billions.
As a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, it tells how a girl with green skin turned into the Wicked Witch of the West. The show is now the first Broadway production to hit the streets since the coronavirus shut down the Great White Way and its roaming offshoots 17 months ago.
Dallas is the first city on the tour. The show runs through September 5th.
Allison Bailey as Glinda (left) and Talia Suskauer as Elphaba in the Broadway tour production of “Wicked”, a starting gun for characters from “The Wizard of Oz”.
(Joan Marcus)
When it opened at the Music Hall in Fair Park on August 3, Wicked marked the return of the Dallas Summer Musicals, whose stage had been dark since County Judge Clay Jenkins banned gatherings of more than 500 people on March 13, 2020.
The contract halted a touring production of Come From Away at the Music Hall after just two performances. Broadway had closed the day before, the announcement came during the intermission of a matinee of the Phantom of the Opera.
Like its main character, Wicked has a tangled backstory, like so many Broadway musicals. Just opening a Broadway show costs millions of dollars, which complicates most productions.
Pippin and Godspell composer Stephen Schwartz was on vacation when a friend suggested reading Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, a psychological portrait of Elphaba Thropp.
Talia Suskauer as Elphaba Thropp aka the Wicked Witch of the West.
(Joan Marcus)
Maguire named it after the phonetic pronunciation of the initials of the author L. Frank Baum. Baum wrote the original source material, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was first published in 1900. But neither he nor the producers behind the iconic 1939 film starring Judy Garland gave the Wicked Witch a backstory or even a human nickname.
In the film, she was the doppelganger of Dorothy’s bike-riding Toto-hating neighbor Almira Gulch. In Maguire’s book and musical adaptation, she has a rival friend named Galinda, the popular school girl who learns magic and becomes Glinda, the good witch of the north.
On Broadway, Wicked cemented Idina Menzel’s reputation as a powerful-voiced bandit. When she got the role of Elphaba, she was just a Tony nominated role as the strong-willed performance artist Maureen Johnson in Rent.
Glinda was played by another rising star, Kristin Chenoweth, who currently stars as the uptight Mildred Layton, boss of Mothers Against the Future, in Apple TV + ‘s hit musical parody Schmigadoon! Both actresses were nominated for Tonys; Menzel won.
On the current tour, the main characters are portrayed by relative newcomers Talia Suskauer and Allison Bailey.
Talia Suskauer as Elphaba (left) and Allison Bailey as Glinda on the North American tour of “Wicked,” the first Broadway touring show since the pandemic began.
(Joan Marcus)
A Wicked film has been in development for a decade. After his directorial work in the heights, John M. Chu is said to be still in the early stages of bringing the film into production.
If the center stops – and there’s no guarantee of the recent surge in coronavirus cases – Dallas will see more than a dozen other Broadway tours between November when Hamilton returns and August 2022 when Frozen plays the Music Hall.
The signage in the Music Hall in Fair Park informs the guests about the mask requirement for participation in “Wicked”, presented by Dallas Summer Musicals.(Ben Torres / special article)
Dallas Summer Musicals requires viewers to wear masks except when eating and drinking in the lobby before the show and during recess. Food and drinks are not permitted in the theater.
details
Until September 5th at the Music Hall at Fair Park, 909 First Ave., Dallas. $ 34- $ 174. dallassummermusicals.org.
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