Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Episode 28: The Making of WICKED


WICKED is the most successful musical in the last fifteen years.  It’s had thousands of productions worldwide and is still playing on Broadway.  But the road to success was a long and arduous one.  This week Ken interviews Winnie Holzman who wrote the libretto for WICKED.   You’ll learn the inspiration, process, problems, solutions, and thinking behind this smash hit musical. 


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8 comments :

The Bumble Bee Pendant said...

This was so freaking interesting

Roger Owen Green said...

Having read the book just before seeing the production, I'm AMAZED how they took that source material and turned it into the musical.

Mitchell Hundred said...

Speaking of other languages, here's what happens when you put one of the show's songs through several layers of Google Translate.

Mike Barer said...

I saw that production at the Paramount in Seattle. Megan Hilty's dad used to come into our UPS Store. Megan was the original leading lady.

Mike Barer said...

You know the underlying premise of The Wizard Of Oz, is so appropriate. For year many of us missed to meaning of Toto, pulling the curtain on the great and powerful Oz, who wound up being just a bumbling old man.

Richard said...

Really interesting interview - if you interview her again it would be great to hear her thoughts on My So-Called Life, still one of my favorite ever bits of TV

Jabroniville said...

(I commented on the Saturday reminder- I can't believe I missed this one!- but I'll leave the same comment here, too, just in case)

This is an amazing interview, Ken. I'm a HUGE Wicked fan- it's about my favorite thing ever, so I knew a lot of the trials and tribulations, but I still got a lot of new info out of this.

I find it interesting how so much of the praise ends up in Kristin Chenoweth's lap- I'm a huge fan, and figured she should have ended up a much bigger star (instead of the kind of niche performer she's become outside of Broadway), but everyone goes up and down to shine praise upon her. I find much less focus on her co-star, Idina Menzel (though Winnie gave her a bit of credit near the end).

I definitely get the whole concept of the two girls ending up as friends, and the musical being about THEIR relationship, is what set the thing off to success (the love story with Fiyero is actually pretty under-written, if you really think about it- he's more of a bland love interest for the two to fight over). That is owed to Kristin making the Glinda part larger. When I watch the play live, I'm almost always more impressed by the Glindas- the role is exceptionally showy and broad, while Elphabas often struggle to keep up- they don't get the funniest lines, they have to be dour and annoyed, and Glinda can run away with things if the actress is exceptionally good. I think an Elphaba can only keep up when they belt to the heavens. People who've seen the show with me tend to agree- my sister even pointed out that Glinda and Elphaba had to take their bows simultaneously, or else the crowd would have cheered for Glinda much more loudly, to an embarrassing degree.

I'd have liked to hear more about Idina Menzel being a part of things. I know you're not a great fan, Ken (too much belting... which probably came about because her non-belting career was a disappointment, and suddenly FROZEN came out and she needs to be a belter again!), but the backstory of her suddenly becoming the lead after Stephanie J. Block was the "Preview Elphaba" is an interesting one, and that would have been interesting to hear about. WICKED is very much a story of "Female Friendship" (I think that's a big part of the musicals's success, which ties in to the "women don't often get to be the heroes" thing Winnie was referring to- there's not a lot of stories about female friendship, either), and I think the Elphabas are often under-represented.

So yeah- amazing stuff. You crammed a lot into forty minutes- I'd love to hear forty more!

estiv said...

This is really good, Ken. The podcast format is perfect for this kind of interview in a way that print just can't match, and hearing two pros talk about their work is really rewarding. At least once you've had David Hyde Pierce contribute to your blog--any chance you could get him on your podcast to tell Frasier stories (or really anything the two of you wanted to talk about)?