Wicked WorldIf you're among my regular Steve On Broadway (SOB) readers, surely by now you know that the Broadway musical
Wicked rates as the tuner the Love Of My Life (LOML) and I have adopted as "Our Show."
While some couples have their song, we have our musical. And we make no apologies for it whatsoever.
If you've ever wondered what a major international blockbuster this show has become, consider this -- worldwide,
Wicked has grossed over $1.9 billion and it has entertained more than 24 million people, who have seen it in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and Australia. Soon, it will also be seen in Finland and Denmark.
While the musical has that tagline, "So much happened before Dorothy dropped in," so much has happened with
Wicked since
I last wrote about the show late last year. Here's a rundown on
Wicked's global reach, where it is currently playing and where it will be performing:
Wicked - Broadway
Gershwin Theatre - New York, New York
After opening October 30, 2003, to mixed reviews, the original production of
Wicked is still going strong.
Not only does it regularly rank as the top grossing Broadway show week after week, but after more than six and a half years, it's also one of those rare shows that still sells every single seat.
Tonight, it will have played its 2755th performance, and it ranks as the 18th longest running show in Broadway history. By year's end, it will eclipse
Hello, Dolly! currently in 17th place.
From my own tally, my LOML and I have seen the show on Broadway at least six times, most recently about a year ago when I found the musical still in tiptop shape.
Wicked - San Francisco
Orpheum Theatre - San Francisco, California
Once the Los Angeles sitdown production closed January 11, 2009, after 791 performances, the company moved up the coast to San Francisco, which was home to the initial Broadway tryout that opened June 10, 2003.
The San Francisco sitdown production opened February 6, 2009, and is currently slated to close on September 5, 2010, after playing a total of 672 regular performances.
While my LOML and I never saw the show in LA, we enjoyed a performance at San Francisco's Orpheum last September when
Patty Duke was portraying Madame Morrible.
Wicked - National Tours
Currently playing Dallas, Texas (
Music Hall at Fair Park) and St. Louis, Missouri (
Fabulous Fox Theatre)
The two national touring companies of
Wicked are still going strong, typically pulling into a major city (and many second-tier cities) for an entire month.
Currently, the tour schedule for two companies run through next summer in
Omaha and
Washington, DC.
To date, I've seen the touring companies perform four times: once in Chicago (not counting all the times I subsequently saw its sitdown production there), twice in Minneapolis and one more time in Des Moines.
While the touring company doesn't come with all the bells and whistles of the Broadway or other sitdown productions, the stagecraft ranks among the best I've ever seen in any touring show, and the casts are every bit as good as you'll find anywhere.
Wicked - London
Apollo Victoria Theatre, London, United Kingdom
As the first international production
Wicked to open, this production was voted "Most Popular Show" by audiences earlier this year in a special Olivier Award category.
The West End incarnation of
Wicked opened September 27, 2006, and enjoyed its 1500th performance on April 23, 2010. The show is currently booking through April 30, 2011.
My LOML and I caught a
performance in April 2007. Of all our
Wicked experiences, this ranked as the weakest of the bunch. But I readily admit it could have just been an off-performance.
Wicked - Osaka
Osaka Shiki Theater - Osaka, Japan
The first foreign-language version of
Wicked opened June 17, 2007, at Tokyo's Shiki Theatre. The Japanese-language production closed September 6, 2009, before transferring to Osaka, where it opened October 11, 2009. The show is still playing.
At the close of 2007, my LOML and I journeyed to
see the Tokyo production. If you've never seen an American musical in a different language, it's quite a unique experience. Fortunately, since we already knew the show backwards and forwards, we had little difficulty following it. Since that time, we've purchased the Japanese language cast recording, and it's a real hoot to listen to.
Wicked - Die Hexen Von Oz - Oberhausen
Metronom Theater - Oberhausen, Germany
On November 15, 2007, the second non-English language production of
Wicked opened.
This time,
Wicked - Die Hexen von Oz (or "The Witches of Oz) was produced entirely in German at Stuttgart's Palladium Theater. After closing January 29, 2010, it transferred to Oberhausen's Metronom Theater, where it opened March 9 and is still performing.
For the first time in our
Wicked experience, my LOML and I enjoyed front-row seats when
taking in the Stuttgart production over Thanksgiving 2007. We thought this incarnation had some of the best talent we had ever seen in the show, and when the cast recording was issued that December, we couldn't resist in purchasing it immediately.
Wicked - Sydney
Capitol Theatre - Sydney, Australia
Given Australians' penchant for calling their nation "Oz," it was inevitable that
Wicked would find its way there.
On July 12, 2008,
Wicked opened at Melbourne's Regent Theatre. As the musical's fourth international production, it played there through August 9, 2009, having enjoyed 464 performances.
On September 12, 2009,
Wicked opened in Sydney, where it continues to play at the Capitol Theatre and breaking records as the venue's highest grossing musical. While the show is currently slated to close exactly one year after it opened (September 12, 2010), it will continue to live on Down Under. My LOML and I will see the production on the evening of August 18.
In January 2011, Wicked will transfer to Brisbane's
Lyric Theatre, followed by an April 2011 opening at Adelaide's
Festival Theatre.
My LOML and I were fortunate to
see the production shortly after it first opened in Melbourne.
Wicked - Helsinki
Helsingin Kaupungin Teatteri - Helsinki, Finland
On August 26, 2010, the first non-replicated production of
Wicked premieres in Helsinki of all places.
Non-replicated essentially means it will be staged differently than the Broadway original with its own production and creative team. And it will be mounted in Finnish.
Currently, this production of
Wicked is
selling tickets through December 31, 2010.
Wicked - Heksene Fra Oz - Copenhagen
Det Ny Teater - Copenhagen, Denmark
Beginning in January 2011, the second non-replicated production of
Wicked takes root, this time in Denmark. Currently,
Wicked - Heksene Fra Oz is scheduled through May 2011. This production will be in Danish.
To date, my LOML and I have made over 20 visits to
Wicked beginning with our first time at the Gershwin on November 1, 2003. Since then, we've seen the show in nine different venues in five different countries.
Where in the world will our fascination with
Wicked take us next? Only the time dragon clock knows for sure.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
In keeping with the new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations that unfairly discriminate against bloggers, who are now required by law to disclose when they have received anything of value they might write about, please note that I have received nothing of value in exchange for this post.Labels: Broadway, Chicago, Des Moines, London, Melbourne, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Musical, San Francisco, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Wicked
SOB's Favorite Shows Of The Noughties: #9 - Wicked (2003, George Gershwin Theatre, New York City, NY/2005, Oriental Theatre, Chicago, IL/2006, Orpheum Theatre, Minneapolis, MN/2007, Apollo Victoria Theatre, London, United Kingdom/2007, Palladium Theater, Stuttgart, Germany/2007, Shiki Theatre, Tokyo, Japan/2008, Regent Theatre, Melbourne, Australia/2009, Orpheum Theatre, San Francisco, CA/2009, Civic Center Main Stage, Des Moines, IA)
Introduction: Hard as it is to comprehend that we're already 119 months into this "new" millennium, we are fast approaching the end of its first decade. While we have yet to agree on what exactly we should call the '00s, I'll take a cue from the fine folks at The Times of London and the BBC and henceforth refer to them at the Noughties. With that small introduction, I'm pleased to present my list of plays and musicals that wowed me the most during that time. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of shows I've seen over the last ten years, I give you my countdown of my 25 personal favorite shows of the Noughties. Perhaps it's appropriate that the musical I've seen in nine different venues on four different continents would blow in at number nine on my favorites list.
Wicked may not have scored big with critics, but it certainly did with my Love Of My Life (LOML) and me. And those witches? Well, they're cackling all the way to the bank.
Seeing
Idina Menzel and
Kristin Chenoweth as Elphaba and Glinda, respectively, just two days after
Wicked opened, my LOML and I were both positively charmed by the story that took the beloved classic “
The Wizard Of Oz” and cleverly spun it on its head. While we were completely mesmerized by Chenoweth in such numbers as “Popular” and Menzel in “Defying Gravity,” we have also been wowed by countless other leading ladies taking on these now iconic roles, even they were performing in other languages like German and Japanese.
It's no wonder this captivating show continues to soar with productions spanning the globe. In fact, it's such an audience favorite that
Wicked is now the
twentieth longest running show in Broadway history. Congratulotions, indeed!
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
In keeping with the new that unfairly discriminate against bloggers, who are now required by law to disclose when they have received anything of value they might write about, please note that I have received nothing of value in exchange for this post. I paid my own way for this performance.
Labels: Broadway, Idina Menzel, Kristen Chenoweth, London, Melbourne, Musical, SOB's Favorite Shows Of The Noughties, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Wicked
SOB's Theatrical Firsts Of The Noughties: For The First Time In My Life I'm Feeling A Little WickedOver the course of the last decade, I’ve been truly fortunate to enjoy a number of enlightening firsts in my personal theatergoing that have only served to increase my deep and abiding love for the art form known as live theatre. What follows is one of my ten favorite experiences of the last ten years.As I mentioned in
my earlier post about my love affair with
Steppenwolf, the other Love Of My Life (LOML) and I have been together for two-thirds of this decade.
It was less than four months into our relationship that we made our first trip together to the Great White Way. A couple months before we had even met, I had secured tickets to
Wicked, which was still a half year away from its Broadway opening.
Two days after the musical opened, LOML and I went to see
Wicked. I was mindful that critics had been less than charitable toward it in their reviews. But perhaps our excitement over the show began when we arrived and were awed by our fifth row center seats. Our deep appreciation for “
The Wizard of Oz” only heightened our appreciation for and enjoyment of
Wicked, which is actually much more clever than some critics cared to admit. As we left the theatre, our feet were practically floating off the floor. We loved
Wicked and couldn’t wait to see it again.
In the more than six years that have passed, we have indulged ourselves by returning to
Wicked more times than we can remember. We returned to Broadway’s
Gershwin Theatre at least a half dozen more times. While we lived in Chicago, we saw the first tour blow through as well as the first sit-down production outside of New York; we’ve seen the show there at least seven times. Additionally, we took in two tour stops: Minneapolis (twice) and Des Moines. We missed the Los Angeles sit-down production, yet managed to see it this year after it transferred to San Francisco.
We’ve also managed to experience this phenomenon overseas, first in
London, then in
Stuttgart (Germany) and then in
Tokyo, all in 2007. Last year, we traveled our farthest distance, all the way to
Melbourne, Australia, to see
Wicked on our fourth continent together. We can’t wait to see where the show will land next so we can add more stamps to our passports .
When my LOML and I last returned the Gershwin earlier this year, our visit was truly extraordinary. We now knew someone in the show who not only arranged house seats for us (which we paid for, FTC!), but also guided us on a backstage tour once the performance had concluded.
We were met by the actor’s dresser, who took us behind the curtain to our friend’s dressing room. From there, our friend took us on the stage of the Gershwin Theatre, which by then was dimly lit by the musical’s ghost light. But what an amazing vantage point to look out at that huge house and realize how much bigger the set looked from there than it did up close. It was a perfect capper to six years of seeing this show from coast-to-coast and around the world, creating memories that will last the rest of our lives.
Some couples have “their song.” For my LOML and I, we have our musical, and it’s name is
Wicked -- a show that never ceases to entertain or hold us in its spell and continues to provide that joy, that thrill, always thrilling us like we think it will.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
In keeping with the new that unfairly discriminate against bloggers, who are now required by law to disclose when they have received anything of value they might write about, please note that I have received nothing of value in exchange for this post. I paid my own way for every single performance of Wicked.Labels: Broadway, Chicago, Des Moines, London, Melbourne, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Musical, San Francisco, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Wicked
Wicked At FiveIn case you haven't already noticed, either by virtue of the
Empire State Building glowing in green or my posts from the past couple of days, the Broadway musical
Wicked is celebrating its
fifth anniversary of its Great White Way opening this evening.
Just a month or two into our relationship,
The Love of My Life and I first saw
Wicked together on the afternoon of November 1, 2003. Some couples have their song. We have our musical.
It springs not just from sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the actual performances
Wicked offers, but it's also derived from our innate love for the original "
Wizard Of Oz" film. After all, we were practically weaned on it as our families gathered around the television sets each year for what amounted to "event" TV way back when.
But cementing our affection for the tuner is
Wicked's inspired twisting inside out of that original tale we thought we already knew backwards and forwards. Together, for the first time, we felt a little wicked in sharing an experience we both heartily enjoyed.
Since we first saw and loved the production from our fifth row center seats a mere two days after it initially opened, we've seen the show enough times that I've honestly lost count. Not only have we been back to the
Gershwin Theatre at least another four times to see the likes of Elphaba and Glinda, but I've also been back there for the
Behind the Emerald Curtain Tour and Monday's night's
The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken benefit performance.
Oh yes, and then there were the performances in Chicago. Not only did we take in the
original touring production when it first landed at the Windy City's Oriental Theatre, but we returned to the subsequent
sitdown production there over and over and over and over again while living there (and even after we moved away). We even had several opportunities there to see our future friend and Tony winner
Rondi Reed perform as Madame Morrible.
Post Chicago, we also took in the touring cast in Minneapolis before venturing overseas to each of the international productions in
London (April 2007),
Stuttgart (November 2007),
Tokyo (December 2007) and
Melbourne (July 2008), and you can bet that we're looking forward to seeing more of the world after this show opens elsewhere. Anyone want to meet us in Amsterdam next?
Just as
The Love of My Life and I celebrate our five years together, the two of us are celebrating
Gregory Maguire for providing the decidedly different, more adult take on Elphaba and Glinda in the first place through his original novel "
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West." We celebrate
Stephen Schwartz and
Winnie Holzman for transforming that story into a family musical via their original score and book. We celebrate producers
Marc Platt,
Universal Pictures,
The Araca Group,
Jon B. Platt and
David Stone for having the vision necessary to bring the show to reality. Last, but certainly not least, we celebrate the countless Elphabas, Glindas, Fiyeros, Madame Morribles, Boqs, Nessaroses, Wizards and Doctor Dillamonds who have brought this story to life around the world.
We salute and celebrate all of you. Here's to another
Wicked five years!
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Anniversary, Broadway, David Stone, Gregory Maguire, Jon B. Platt, London, Marc Platt, Melbourne, Stephen Schwartz, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Touring Production, Wicked, Winnie Holtzman
ウィキッド - The Broadway Musical Wicked (The SOB Revisit) - Shiki Theatre, Tokyo, Japan 東京
*** (out of ****)Some couples have their song. For the love of my life and me... well, let's just say we have our
musical.
If you're a regular Steve On Broadway reader, you've probably already guessed that it happens to be
Wicked. It was one of the very first tuners we saw as a couple -- our first time taking it in was just two days after the theatrical phenomenon opened on Broadway back in October 2003.
Whether it's our affinity for its ingenious inside-out twisting of "
The Wizard Of Oz" fable we grew up on, or our hope from its message that different can be a virtue, or our love of its clever and often soaring tunes,
Wicked has truly become "our musical."
So in that spirit, we traveled last week to our third international city this year --
London and
Stuttgart came earlier -- to see the production in a third language.
On Christmas Eve, we saw
ウィキッド - The Broadway Musical Wicked at Tokyo's
Shiki Theatre. As in London and Stuttgart, I was amazed at how faithful to the original this incarnation is in staging, orchestrations, choreography and design. And while I don't speak a lick of Japanese (except to say "good afternoon," "good evening" and "thank you"), I was captivated by Miyuki Numao and Megumi Hamada, the duo originating the Japanese version's roles of Glinda and Elphaba, respectively.
Unlike in Germany, where I couldn't help but rethink the political allegories and how they were evocative of the Third Reich, I sat back and soaked in Tokyo's
Wicked (although it wasn't lost on me that within one month's time, I was seeing this musical in the two primary nations that we fought in World War II).
As one of the most homogeneous societies on earth, the modern Japanese culture remains steeped in ancient tradition. With that in mind, I couldn't help but wonder whether the themes of
ウィキッド - The Broadway Musical Wicked might well be viewed as a clarion call to be more accepting of other peoples and other cultures. Ironically, in this tightly knit society, an outlandish individual like Glinda with her platinum blonde coiffure would be nearly as unique in Japan as the green girl Elphaba would be everywhere.
Since
Wicked is ultimately about looking at things -- especially other members of the human race -- another way, I was interested in measuring the extremely polite audience's response. With laughter and applause kept to a minimum level that would surely have had
Stephanie Zimbalist seeing an oil painting, I was surprised to see more curtain calls for this staging of
Wicked than any other I've ever seen before -- six curtain calls, plus an "encore" of "White Christmas" that finally brought the entire audience to its feet. Sharing this communal experience with a Japanese audience was certainly half the fun.
If you've never before seen one of your favorite Broadway shows in another language, you just might want to give it a try -- you'll likely come away thinking as I did about how they went about translating an entire show into another language and whether they were able to retain the same spirit, if not altogether the same trademark humor. Needless to say, in this
Wicked, it appeared that many key laughlines were likely lost in translation, yet I couldn't help but be impressed at the arduous task this show's creators had before them to replicate as best they could a uniquely American show for a much wider audience.
In the end, that audience half a world away from home ultimately seemed equally impressed, further demonstrating the transcendent appeal of
Wicked's tale.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for ウィキッド - The Broadway Musical Wicked Tokyo ticket information.Related Stories:Wicked - Die Hexen Von Oz (The SOB Revisit) (December 2, 2007)
Wicked To Finally Land In Oz During 2008 (May 16, 2007)
Wicked (The SOB Revisit) - London (April 17, 2007)
Wicked World (March 19, 2007)
Jaaku or Neikan? Wicked Set for Japanese Translation (July 24, 2007)
Labels: Broadway, Musical, Tokyo, Wicked, Wicked Die Hexen Von Oz, ウィキッド
Tuning In To Live BroadwayWhen I flew to Tokyo, the ride on
Continental Airlines went by relatively fast thanks to the Boeing 777's excellent on-demand entertainment system. With over 300 movie selections from which to choose, there was not a dull moment to be had.
Unfortunately, the carrier didn’t offer the same level of entertainment (or, regrettably, the same level of service) for my return flight -- there were only a dozen or so flicks. But on the plus side, they did offer their “
Live Broadway” station for Great White Way listening (Continental is the “official airline” for Broadway). So I whiled the hours enjoying an eclectic mix from the following playlist:
“As We Stumble Along” –
The Drowsy Chaperone“Hell No!” –
The Color Purple“All I Ask of You” –
The Phantom Of The Opera“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” –
Monty Python’s Spamalot“Medley” –
Jersey Boys“Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind” –
Spring Awakening“Someday” –
The Wedding Singer“There Once Was a Man” –
The Pajama Game“Statues and Stories” –
The Light In The Piazza“For Good” –
Wicked“Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now” –
Hairspray“So Much Better” –
Legally Blonde“Sue Me” –
Guys And Dolls“’Til Him” –
The Producers“Forget About the Boy” –
Thoroughly Modern Millie“Run, Freedom, Run” –
Urinetown“Love, Look Away” –
Flower Drum Song“Javert’s Suicide” –
Les Misérables “The Music and the Mirror” –
A Chorus Line“Way Back to Paradise” –
Marie Christine“What You Own” –
Rent“Around the World” –
Grey Gardens“Show People” –
Curtains“Guido’s Song” –
Nine“Not the Boy Next Door” –
The Boy From Oz“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” –
Mary Poppins“Pandemonium” –
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee“The More You Ruv Someone” –
Avenue Q“Happy Holiday/Let Yourself Go” –
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas“You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” –
AnnieSeems apropos that the last tune was from the very first Broadway show I ever saw. It certainly made me smile on the long journey home.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Broadway, Continental, Live Broadway, Tokyo
Merry Christmas From TokyoGreetings from the incredibly vibrant, yet surprisingly
quiet city of Tokyo, where I'm spending this Christmas holiday catching a little theatre, but also getting acquainted with this magnificent city.
In seeing our show, it appeared we were the only westerners in the audience. I'll write more about the actual performance of the Japanese language version for this Broadway hit later, but I was struck by how incredibly polite the audience was. They hardly laughed or applauded during the performance (and you could hear a pin drop whenever the stage was quiet). But they clearly loved the show considering the six curtain calls.
After the fourth call, the orchestra started to play familiar strains. But it wasn't anything from the show itself. Instead, they played "White Christmas" with orchestrations lifted right from the show's familiar score. The two lead actors began singing -- in English -- and were soon joined by the entire cast. It made for a very moving experience. It was beautiful.
The rest of my Christmas Eve (it is Christmas Day here thanks to the 14 hour time difference) navigating the complex subway system before walking around (and walking and walking and walking). After toasting Chrismas with a glass of champagne in the
bar of the city's renowned
Imperial Hotel -- the Old Imperial Bar is the only remaining room with
Frank Lloyd Wright's original design -- we took in the 50 year old
Tokyo Tower (pictured), which purposely resembles Paris'
Eiffel Tower and affords some of the best views of this immense city. And strangely enough, with one Christmas hymn after another being piped out of the tower's sound system, it was easy to remember which holiday was upon us.
Please accept my personal best wishes for a very Merry Christmas. Here's wishing you and yours nothing but peace and love.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Christmas, Frank Lloyd Wright, Japan, Special Messages, Tokyo, Travels, White Christmas
