Wicked: The Lore Behind the Broadway Musical

0:00 Wicked the 2003 Smash Hit Broadway musical finally came to the big screen this year after first debuting on Broadway over 20 years ago what about this musical is so beloved that it's still running on Broadway and popular even until today we're going to take a look at the lore of wicked and talk about how a greedy retelling of The Wizard of Oz was reimagined into a hit Broadway musical Wicked the untold story of The Witches of Oz [Applause] hello it's F so this is a video series I wanted to do on my channel diving into the lore of The Wizard of Oz and wicked because of the wicked movie coming out this year and I'm really excited for this one because I'm a bigger Wicked fan than a Wizard of Oz fan Wicked was one

0:45 of the first musicals I saw live and it was a big part of my musical theater Obsession any musical theater fan will tell you they have strong feelings about Wicked it's one of the most popular musicals of the 21st century with two beloved lead characters Glenda and alphaba and iconic songs like popular and Defying Gravity it's influenced not just musical theater but broader pop culture and its original Broadway cast leads Christan chenowith and Aden menel have become Broadway Legends and continued to kill it being in countless popular movies and TV shows in my previous video I looked at the production history behind The Wizard of Oz 1939 film Disney's influence and the Golden Age of Hollywood and all of the production problems that the film had so please check out that video If you haven't in this video I wanted to talk about Wicked the book and Musical and

1:31 we're going to talk about changes they made to the book for the musical behind the scenes lore creative decisions songs and more and after this I wanted to make another video looking into the wicked movie production and the Press tour and all that so please hold space for that and subscribe if you would like to see that I want to give some quick disclaimers before I start this video I do feel like I say galinda and Glenda A Lot in this video and I kind of Switched between the two I'm sorry and also I do like to say adaption instead of adaptation I know people problems with this but like the Wicked musical movie adaption sounds right to me but I don't want to debate Linguistics I just want to talk about Wicked and I do want to say this video is going to include my opinions on Wicked so let's start off with the Wizard of Oz movie coming out and becoming one of the most successful

2:17 movies of all time it's considered to be the most watched film in all of history and after the wizard of Oz's movie success the original series also entered the public domain in 1956 so people were welcome to make their own interpretations of The Wizard of Oz although keep in mind elements of the 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz are still copyright protected content so things that are unique to the film were not as easily able to be used but the film follows the book very closely so it's almost indistinguishable but some of the most well-known changes they made for the movie was giving the witch green skin which wasn't present in the original book and the Wicked Witch of the East having ruby slippers rather than silver shoes in the original book and one author who ventured to reimagine the story of The Wizard of Oz was Gregory Maguire in his novel Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of

3:03 the West published in 1995 which would go on to be the basis for the 2003 Broadway musical The Wicked book interprets Oz rather than this happy beautiful fairy tale place as this greedy Society with racial issues political upheaval and a dictator The Wizard of Oz the book also really dives into the sex lives of The Wizard of Oz characters if that's something you wanted out of the wizard of O story so it's almost a little shocking that step Schwarz was like I want to make a musical out of this but I think he mainly heard backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West and was like I want that I don't think he really read the book before he wanted the rights for it so first let's do a mini Wicked book report and then we can talk about the more fun part which is the musical so wicked the book the start of the book cuts to the middle of The Wizard of Oz

3:49 story when the Scarecrow lion and Tin Man are walking down the yellow brick road with Dorothy to see the wiard Devas but this time rather than being in the perspective of the heroes we are seeing it through the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West who is observing them as they tell crass jokes about her such as joking that she may be transgender or into women or a mistress but alphaba is watching biting her time so alphaba is the main character who goes on to be the Wicked Witch of the West her name is alphaba as an nage to Al Frank bomb lfb alphaba or Alie if you're familiar and the book centers around alphaba throughout her entire life until her ultimate demise that we see in The Wizard of Oz and I've seen a lot of discussion online where people consider the wicked book to be a prequel to the movies rather than lfrank bomb's book

4:36 just because of how El Frank bomb's book series had elements later on in the story that would contradict things that happen in the wicked universe but even Wicked the musical and The Wizard of Oz movie side by side don't really fully match up so I think you need to change some things that happened in The Wizard of Oz plot to fully make the story make sense but the second half of the book connects back to the wizard of Ozz a lot more than the first half because the first half is just focusing on on alaba's younger years and college Years so after this little vignette we flash back to alaba's birth so for the first couple chapters we are spending time with alaba's Mother molena who's a munchkin but she's average height because upper class munchkins are taller than the lower class ones we're also going to learn a lot about the geopolitics of Oz I guess so the Land of Oz is mainly split into four regions gilin Winky quadling and munchkin

5:23 country gilin and munchkin country are the two main places that The Wizard of Oz and wicked take place in they are the Richer regions and there's an emerald mine between the two of them that get emeralds for the Emerald City which is in the middle and the richest of all where the Wizard of Oz lives and the map of the Land of Oz is actually the curtain for Wicked the stage musical that's seen before the show starts and alphaba is born in Rush margin in munchkinland and her father is a unionist minister fper unionism is the main religion that's practiced in munchkinland and gilin and they worship the unnamed God her mother molena is an ays to a well-respected munchkin family the throp family and the night that alphaba is Born the clock Dragon comes to their town it's this giant stage with a dragon on top it's more like a theater with a dragon and the dragon clock shows

6:09 these puppets doing graphic acts on his stage and all of the people in Munchkin land are enthralled by this FX is upset because he feels like what the dragon is doing is in line with the pleasure Faith another religion rather than unionism so he starts to try to get the people to stop watching the dragon clock but the dragon has told everyone to kill him and his wife I think the dragon like T ially communicates to people and later while they're on a Manhunt to kill FX and molena molena gives birth to alphaba inside of the Dragon clock the ladies delivering her are disgusted by her because she's born green and right away there's a connection between the dragon and alphaba the dragon even calls alphaba a little dragon it's not really a clock it doesn't have the correct time it's a tick tock creature which is like another race of creatures in a that I assume are like mechanical which then is

6:57 transformed into the dragon on the real stage of Wicked on Broadway so alphaba is born green and she also has really sharp teeth and bites off one of the lady's fingers and in the earlier chapters there's a lot of talk about alaba's sex and gender like the ladies that deliver her alaba's mom and even the Tin Man make jokes that she may be trans or interex and later on Molen also questions alaba's gender she says it was a she it was a her Molina practiced conversions in her thinking when she was alone the twitching unhappy bundle was not male it was not neutered it was female it slept looking like a heap of cabbage leaves washed and left to drain on the table and from this quote you can also see main is having trouble connecting with her daughter and she's having trouble seeing her as a normal baby and not a monster but I do question what the author is trying to tell us

7:43 about alphaba with her gender is this supposed to be a trans allegory are we supposed to interpret it a different way I do think alphaba also represented as like anything bad or like taboo in society like the Tin Man is joking that she's a mistress or trans or interx or like into women these are just different things that could be perceived as wicked by society and we know the overall message of the book is what's good versus wicked but I am curious about what other people's interpretations of this are because I don't really know what to make of it I think with the Wicked musical you could make queer interpretations of it at first I thought maybe like this is transphobic but I did look up the author and he is a gay man and he was one of the first men to get legally married so I don't think it's transphobic but it was also 1985 so maybe it was after alphaba is born

8:28 Molina becomes an alcoholic she's also constantly cheating on her husband while he's away she soon becomes pregnant with her second child and she doesn't know if the father is Turtle heart or FX so Turtle heart is this quadling glass blower who comes to visit them and he becomes lovers to both FX and Molen although I don't think they know about each other's situation but they become very close and he becomes an important part of the family and molena becomes pregnant with her second child Nessa Rose who is born without arms the night that nessarose is born Turtle heart is sacrificed to and the munchkin land famine and Melena starts to become more devout in her religious beliefs because she feels like God is punishing her having one of her daughters be born green and the other one is born without arms for all of her infidelity molena and FX go to quadland Country to preach

9:15 unionism to the quadlings this is pretty rare for munchkins cuz even when they were in Munchkin land and had Turtle Hearts staying with them it lowered their reputation and people made fun of alphaba for living with the quadling so in alaba's early childhood after is born they travel around quadling country when alphaba is eight Molina has her third child shell so Nessa Rose and alphaba have a third sibling but he's not really that important cuz he's not in the musical but rather than their mom dying during child birth with Nessa she actually dies in child birth delivering shell and the name shell is also an homage to Turtle heart their brother shell goes on to become an important part of the wicked book series because there are four books in The Wicked series I believe he becomes the ruler of Oz after The Wizard of Oz is removed at the end of this book but then we cut to Glen at entering sh's University and the

10:01 whole first fourth of the book about alaba's parents and her childhood are basically compressed into a couple verses in the opening number of wicked No One Mourns the Wicked we switched to glinda's perspective enthusiastically starting her first year at chiz and through A Series of Unfortunate Events she's paired with alphaba as a roommate galinda is very selfish and only looking out for herself and advancing her own social standing she dreams of becoming a sorceress and after months of Glinda and alphaba ignoring each other they one night start to talk about religion as alaba's father is a unionism minister and alphaba knocks over a hat box and galinda goats her into trying on this hat and once she tries it on ginda realizes her beauty and then they have a existential bonding conversation about the differences between good and evil they also live with a livein chaperon

10:48 Alma clutch basically all women in their society have chaperon but while they're at school they meet some different important characters like Dr dillamond Who is one of their professors and also a goat he discusses that there's banss being put on animal Mobility by The Wizard of Oz also a munchkin boy Bach who was a childhood friend of alphaba when they used to live together in Munchkin land starts to befriend alphaba again and then we switch to boach POV So Bach is in love with galinda and he's watching girls change through the dorm windows and he's hoping to watch galinda change a lot of weird sexual stuff in this book but I'm mostly glossing over that alphaba tries to set up Bach and ginda but ginda wants to be with someone higher class in gilin and in their school women and animals are not allowed

11:34 to use the library and when Dr Dilan and alphaba want to do research on the animal oppression and how animals gained their power of speech she asks Bach to do the research and check out the books for them and she starts to form this research friend group with Bach crope tibit and ack aick basically has the personality of musical Fiero he's like the Carefree party boy ginda continuously tries to reject boach boach still kisses her soon after this after they come back from summer vacation boach starts to think he has a breakthrough in his research and wants to show this scroll to Dr dillamond but shortly after this Dr dillamond is murdered on campus and the only person who sees what happened in the murder is Alma clutch but Alma clutch is losing touch on reality when ginda first enrolled in shiz and she was trying to

12:20 get out of having her roommate she told matam moral that Alma clutch has a problem where she's unable to tell between living creatures and inanimate objects this was a lie that Glinda made up but then Alma clutch starts to actually develop that condition Glinda thinks that it's her inherent sorcery that's causing this but alphaba thinks that it's Madam morel's doing so when Alma clutch is on her deathbed galinda and alphaba try to ask her what happened to Dr Dilan cuz she saw his murder but she passes away before she can really say anything and when they go into the next year of school when animals are no longer permitted to teach the women's college and the men's college start to take coad classes together cuz prior to this they were separated but because they no longer have as much staff with the animals gone they make the school co-ed and one of the new teachers is Dr nicknick Who has an animal Cub trapped

13:06 in a cage that they're doing experiments on alphaba and some of the other students are upset by how they're treating this Cub some of the girls in the class take the cub and release him and some other students are enrolling in shiz Nessa Rose alaba's sister Nessa Rose is chaperoned by a nanny because she needs assistance with walking and balance she's also a very devout unionist like their father some of the students find this kind of annoying but similar SAR to alphaba Nessa Rose has been rejected from society and most people are not super kind to her and while they're at school Nessa receives a package from their father that has these beautiful jeweled handmade shoes alphaba is immediately jealous of this and another student that joins shiz is Fiero who is a winky Prince he has dark skin in these Diamond Blue Tattoo markings because he's from a more tribal area all

13:54 of the students kind of are weirded out by him like he explains that he was married when he was seven but he won't see his bride until their 20s and things like that but they soon invite him into their friend group and they push all of the past drama aside and they make this Charmed Circle friend group with ginda alphaba Bach aick Fiero shenshen crope tibit Nessa and Fanny and while they're out one night they start talking about singing and it's mentioned that alphaba has a great singing voice and she sings them a song I believe you're supposed to interpret that the song she's singing is over the rainbow this is from box POV he says Alaba made up a little song on the spot a song of longing and otherness of far away in Future Days strangers closed their eyes to listen b did too alphaba had no C voice he saw the imaginary place she conjured up a land were Injustice and common cruelties in despotic Rule and the beggaring fist of

14:42 drought didn't work together to hold Everyone by the neck no he wasn't giving her credit alphabet had a good voice it was controlled and feeling and not histrionic he listened through to the end and the song faded into the hush of the respectful Pub later he thought the melody faded like a rainbow after a storm or like the winds coming com down and that message is pretty similar to what Dorothy sings in over the rainbow Madam moral then gathers galinda alphaba Nessa Rose to talk to them about what they can do after graduation and it turns out that Madame Morel has plans for them to all become government adepts so she wants each of the ladies to foresee and rule over a certain area and then basically like report back to the government and all be under like a controlled system to basically take over all of Oz so Madam moral can keep

15:27 control over it and she tells the like to think about it until graduation but they're unable to talk to each other about it because she curses them with the spell so they can't talk about it and this night aick and Bach want to go to the philosophers club which is basically this like crazy Club brothel thing alphaba talks galinda and nessarose out of goinging but ack Fier Shen Shen crope tibit and Bach and Fanny all go to the philosophers club and they basically have like this crazy orgy situation there and hibit is brought on stage and has relations with this tiger on stage and everyone watches a description of the philosophers Club is they danced the crowd was the most mixed boach had seen in some time there were animals humans dwarfs elves and several

16:13 Tick Tock things of incomplete or experimental gender a squadron of well-built blonde boys circulated with tumblers of rut squash wine which the friends drank because it was free alphaba and Glinda go to the Emerald City Glinda doesn't really like the Emerald City and finds it like fake but they go go to see the wizard Alaba wants to tell him of Dr dillan's work but the wizard is super dismissive of Dr Dillan and the animal rights problems and he's basically like the animals are undignified and stupid and I'm not going to do anything for them but alphaba tries to plead their case and after they talk to the wizard alphaba starts to realize that the wizard and Madam moral are working together and she doesn't want to go back to shiz to be instructed by Madam moral because she doesn't trust her alphabet asks Glinda to go back to shiz and she's basically going to go off on her own ginda doesn't want B ago she

16:59 cries and they kiss twice and then alphaba disappears and then 3 years later all of the students at sh have graduated and Fiero is walking around the cloer of St Glinda which is no relation to Glinda the you know the character she's just a saint named ginda but when Vier is at the convent he sees that alphaba actually lives there and he starts to try to befriend and reconnect with alphaba he now has three children with his wife but when he sees alphaba he wants to start a romantic relationship with her so they have this passate explicit love affair and we may not know the answer to Is your pissy green but we do know the answer to what color her hair is which Fier says it's more purple than black I don't know if we need to know this but basically they have this passionate love affair in secret and one day while he's in town he

17:46 runs into ginda there and they haven't seen each other since graduation and they start to catch up but Fier wants to keep his distance ginda asks about alphaba and if he's seen her but he lies at this point galinda is married to a wealthy businessman and she's been traveling around doing Goodwill for the community to help her husband get business deals and Fier learns that alphaba is part of the rebellion and she has plans to kill Madame moral they tell each other that they love each other and while she's in the city and Madam moral is there she plans to kill her but then a group of school children come out into the area where Madam moral is and alphaba can't go through with killing her with all the kids present and probably maybe also hurting them FOH is watching alphaba and then he loses her so he decides to go back to her house but when FOH gets there the wizard

18:31 forces get to him and he's never heard from again and then we skip about another 7 years alphaba is around 30 she's traveling to the vicus to visit foo's Widow she's now accompanied by this mysterious child Le and while on the trip she finds this baby monkey chis and she starts to try to teach chis how to speak and she also does experiments on him to give him wings so after she gets to see fierro's widow serea she spends time with their family and their children and her sisters at the castle she tries to talk to Sara about what happened to Fier but she really doesn't want to talk about it but she does get information about how fierro's body was never found Sera actually thinks that Fiero was having an affair with ginda because he mentioned in the past about how she's one of the most beautiful people he'd ever seen and ginda has this huge

19:16 reputation for being one of the most beautiful people in Oz Sera and her family theorized that glinda's husband sent a hit out on the man that she was having an affair with and that's what killed Fiero and while she's there the family gives Alaba the grimy which is this magical spell book but they're all unable to read it alphaba can sometimes read it but the pages are always moving and changing so it's hard for her to read and alphaba explains what she sees in the grimy and its horrible spells and methods for poisoning water and breeding a docile population and different torture and weapons and just lots of horrible things and while she's at their family castle alphaba and Nessa Rose's old Nanny comes to visit her while talking to Nanny she learns a lot of her family's secrets and her nanny asks her what her relationship with L is and if that's her son and actually alphaba is

20:02 unsure about if L is her son she tells this story about when she first arrived at this Mortuary that she was taken in and in a coma for over a year and she believes that she may have possibly delivered a baby during the time she was unconscious which would have made the baby Fiero so she thinks that it might be her and fierro's child but when she woke up she was tending to abandon babies and the elderly and she had no particular Eternal feelings over Lear she just saw him as one of the other abandoned children she was taking care of but when she left they told her it was on the condition that she had to bring Lear with her which I think started her questioning if Lear was actually her child but while they've been on this trip to the vicus she's been having more maternal instincts over him but she kind of doesn't like that part of herself her nanny tells her lots

20:49 of information about Molen and her father she tells alphaba about her mom's Affairs and how her mother sent her to find this special cure to hopefully not have her next baby be born green but the nanny thinks that these cause nesser Ro's conditions she also shares with alphaba more about Turtle heart but she decides not to tell alphaba about how her mom fell into a depression after she was born and keeps that to herself she also explains why her mother was so against having daughters and really wanted sons was because she didn't like the life she grew up in being in the throp family and she didn't want to confin her daughters to the same life that she had to live alphaba also learns from her nanny what Nessa Rose is doing and learns that nessarose has actually been able to walk with the power of her shoes and has actually been ruling over

21:34 munchkinland as their mayor alphabet decides to visit Nessa and munchkin land and see how nessa's ruling over them she does feel like Nessa is pushing religion on munchkin land too much Nessa asks alphaba to join her in ruling munchkin land together and like she can baptize her and stuff but alphaba of course can't get wet water Burns her every time she's cried we've heard this she's also been avoiding rain so she says she can't get baptized and she doesn't want to work with Nessa and while she's there she sees Nessa Rose do some magic and enchant an axe of this wood cutter alphaba also wonders if Nessa Rose took Madam morel's deal to become an Adept because of her magical powers so she thinks she might be a pawn for The Wizard and Madam moral so alphaba leaves Nessa there in Munchkin land and we cut to S years later a twister with a house

22:20 falls on her and Dorothy arrives in munchkinland alphaba goes to munchkinland to pay respects to her sister and while she's there she runs into Glinda alphaba decides to confront ginda about the Fiero galinda Affair rumor and galinda denies this and she also says she wouldn't be with someone who's dark skinned like Fier and alphaba realizes that glinda's gone back to her shallow ways before they met in shiz because during shiz she went on a transformation but it seems like she's reverted back to the person she was alphaba really wanted the shoes and she questions what happened to them and ginda says that she gave them to the girl who fell from the sky Dorothy and told Dorothy to go see The Wizard of Oz alphaba feels like she deserves the shoes but ginda says that she was the one looking after Nessa after alphaba

23:06 disappeared and she also Enchanted the shoes so she doesn't think alphaba deserves them but since darthy is headed to the wizard alphaba fears that the Wizard's going to take the shoes from Dorothy and then somehow use the magic of the shoes for the reunification of bringing munchkin land back into Oz which they don't want because they don't want munchkin land to be under O's Rule ginda and alphaba see each other for the last time both women averted their eyes and hurried their feet along their opposite ways for the which the sky was a huge Boulder pressing down on her for ginda it was much the same but ginda wheeled about and cried out oh Elfie the witch did not turn they never saw each other again so the wizard comes to confront alphaba and The Wizard tells alphaba that Sera and her whole family has been killed by him and nor the last surviving daughter of seran Fiero is taken as a prisoner to the wizard alabel

23:52 learns that because of her rejecting Madam morel's offer in college the wizard has been looking after her since then the wizard also tells her that Madame moral has a talent for breaking girls to force them to be part of this like government operation but alphaba really wants to find a way to save no so she proposes that she'll trade the grimy or a page of the grimy for no because he's interested in it but she plans to trick him but she doesn't know how to go about this she realizes that she has to kill Madam moral so she goes back to shiz and visits her but when she finds Madam morille she's already dead but she decides to pledge in her corpse anyway and she basically wants credit for killing Madam moral so she goes to visit aick and tells his family that she killed Madam moral and she meets this mysterious dwarf who tells her that

24:38 she's a half from Oz and half another thing and he brings out the time dragon and the time Dragon shows her this play of her parents' life she learns about her conception learning that her father is actually this mysterious traveler who gives this green bottle to molena it says Molina at home yawned and waited and teased her hair Along came a man who the witch could not identify at first he had a small black bag and from it he extracted a green glass bottle he gave it to molena to drink and when she had she fell into his arms either stupified and drunk as the witch was tonight or liberated it wasn't clear the traveler and Molen made love in the etc etc etc etc but then the dragon shows her that the mysterious man left on a balloon and she immediately realizes that her father

25:25 is the wizard she at first is in denial about this but then realizes that it must must be true and she's given this green Elixir bottle from the dwarf and goes back home she does take the Elixir and she thinks that she potentially might think Fiero is still alive she talks to Lear Lear does know some information about Dorothy and the team she's assembled they went to the wizard for a heart a brain courage and for Dorothy to go home but the wizard wouldn't grant them their wishes unless they came to kill alphaba because she's a murderer for killing Madam moral so she knows the rumors of her killing Madam moral have spread she thought the Scarecrow was a disguise and it might be Fiero coming back to her so she sends her bees to attack the group but all they find in the Scarecrow is straw she also finds out that the lion is the same lion that Dr nicknick was doing

26:10 experiments on Dorothy comes to alaba's house and Lear and Dorothy talk alphaba invites Dorothy in and feeds her a meal but she starts to accuse her of all these different things like why she stole the shoes if she's actually an Adept along with ginda and Nessa and if she has some ulterior motive and she also confronts Dorothy about com there to kill her but Dorothy says she was just there to apologize for killing her sister and she didn't mean for any of this to happen alphaba tries to get the shoes from Dorothy but Dorothy says she's been unable to take them off for days and she believes that ginda Enchanted them to have them stay on alphaba then sets her broom on fire and while they're fighting she accidentally catches her skirt and clothes on fire and Dorothy throws the bucket of water over her to actually save her life she thinks but she doesn't know that alphaba has an allergy with water so alphaba

26:57 unfort Ely dies there while Dorothy was trying to save her Dorothy returns to the wizard with the Tin Man scarecrow lion and Lear Dorothy shows the wizard her broom and the green Elixir bottle the wizard realizes what he's done and how he's killed his own daughter and flees out of Oz from his balloon this was just a few hours before the palace was going to revolt and execute him without a trial it's unclear if Dorthy is still in AZ or what happened to her but Lear travels to the Emerald City in hopes of finding his half sister nor and sera's daughter everyone celebrates the Wicked Witch of the West's death ginda has a strange feeling that night and leaves out a candle and that's the end of the story so let's talk about Wicked then becoming a musical Steven Schwarz the popular and well-respected Lyricist

27:43 and composer who has won three Academy Awards and three Grammys and made very popular Broadway musicals like God spell and Pippen and would also contribute a number of lyrics to successful musical films like Pocahontas The Hunchback of notredam the prin of Egypt when Disney and DreamWorks were both making 2D animated musicals so he went on vacation here's about Wicked from a friend and he immediately runs to his lawyers to investigate who has the rights and Universal Pictures has the rights to Wicked we learn actually that a screenplay was in development but nothing was really coming together so Steven Schwarz would meet with a president at Universal Pictures Mark Platt and give an imp passion plea to why he should let him use the property for his musical this worked and Mark Platt signed up on as a producer for the

28:29 Wicked musical he would also go on to produce the 2024 film in this time between 1996 to 2024 Mark Platt has become a extremely famous movie musical producer producing movie musicals like into the woods La La Land Mary Po and returns Aladdin The Little Mermaid Snow White he really loves these liveaction Disney remakes I'm not sure I see you on those but I do love La La Land I also do know him best for being involved in the Ben plat neppo baby Scandal because he also produced the deer of En Hansen movie with his son Ben Platt as the star we could talk about that another day since Alan man and Steven Schwarz recently won a Academy Award for Colors of the Wind I think it was a little bit easier for Steven Schwarz to get back in for his project because he was already a

29:14 well-respected and award-winning Lyricist and composer so they would start working behind the scenes on Wicked in 2000 Steven Schwarz would announced to the press that he's writing the music and lyrics for Wicked and Winnie holsman is writing the book Winnie Hol is a TV writer primarily writing TV shows like 30s something and my so-called life and she had never written for the Broadway stage at this point Winnie actually says that she independently read Wicked and inquired about the rights thinking that it would make a good TV show or movie but found out that Universal already had it before Steven Schwarz got the idea to make Wicked into a stage Musical and soon they started workshopping and testing different material and immediately some of the darker themes that were in the novel like the sexual assault political

29:59 unrest infidelity racism the role of religion in society were very much simplified for the musical the first reading they did was in Spring of 2000 and at this point galinda was hardly in the musical following the plot of the book some of the earliest songs finished for the musical that would end up in the final product is one short day as long as you're mine and making good which would be reworked into the Wizard and I and Christian chenowth Tony winning actress for portraying Sally Brown in you're a good man Charlie Brown on Broadway in 1999 and sitcom star would join the cast of wicked in September of 2000 after the TV show that she was starring in was cancelled she was committed to work on Wicked in an early interview she said I wish I had more to sing but I took it for the journey that

30:44 the character takes and after this Steven Schwarz really wanted to compose and write with Christian Chen's voice in mind and the character of ginda became very shaped after Kristen chenowith and it seems like combination of Christian Chen withth committing to the show also them seeing the potential of glinda's character who isn't extremely important in the books but the relationship between alphaba and ginda would soon become the heart of the show and during this time of workshopping and reading Stephanie J block would be alphaba she would later go on to tour as alphaba in the first national tour of wicked and become a Broadway Legend outside of wicked and win her own Tony for portraying share and they would do another workshop in March of 2001 one at this point Steven Schwarz remembers that

31:30 No One Mourns the Wicked was actually introduced by Madam moral and sung by Dorthy the tinman Scarecrow and lion but then later decided that galinda should start the show and sing that song instead so in the summer of 2001 director Joe mantell would join the project and they would start new auditions in New York City to cast for the potential Broadway musical at this point they would cast Rising Star Adena menel as alphaba Adena was most known at this point for being a supporting character in the cult classic musical Rent as Moren Johnson gay [Music] [Applause] icon [Music] me the casting directors really liked

32:17 the Precision and control that Kristen had while the roness that Adena had and felt like they made really good counterparts to each other Adena Mensel talked about being very excited to audition for Wicked and she put on green lipstick and green blush when she auditioned but the show would need extensive workshopping before it was ready to be presented on stage they would say that when they presented just the First Act it was almost 3 hours and it just needed to be cut down they do mention in Steven schwarz's biography that the author of Wicked Gregory McGuire would go to one of the workshops and he would say even though I had several reservations My overall appreciation for the work was profound and gen Winnie holsman would also say that after they finished reading the novel they put it away because as

33:03 brilliant and Powerful as the book was it wasn't what we needed to make the musical and she would come up with the idea of bringing oz to Life by having their own slang like confus aying and hide odius okay so now we're going to talk about some changes that happened throughout the workshop these are mostly taken from Steven schwarz's biography Defying Gravity and wicked the grimy so in an earlier version of the script alphaba Fiero and Dr dillamond do research into the animal oppression and sing a song as if by Magic which Echoes a scene in my fair lady and this was pulled out of the book from alaba's research group with Bach and his friends and Fier was completely reimagined from this tribal Prince to this frat boy Prince with Adam Garcia in mind for the role at first when Fiero was introduced he would sing the songs who could say no

33:50 to you and easy as winky wine but both were cut in place of which ways the party which would be a big dance number for the stud students at shiz Steven Schwarz basically describes this section of the Fiero song as the most difficult part of the creative team for them to land on what they should do here the creative team also had a lot of trouble with the animal oppression subplot and this also caused a lot of friction it seemed like some of them were even in favor of removing the animal subplot altogether Steven Schwarz would say frankly we tried to get rid of it because it's confusing but so much of the plot hinges on it that was the biggest thing for us to solve figuring out how that could be done without bogging the whole thing down there were some other songs that were cut like Alaba would sing an I'm limited reprise when she sees Dr Dilan and he's unable

34:35 to speak they did go through a lot of different ideas for what to do with Dr dillan's storyline in the book if you remember he's killed so in the original Workshop I think he was also killed but later on they got this idea that he explodes in this like lab explosion I don't really understand this cuz isn't he a history teacher but he gets exploded in a lab explosion like disappears they think he's dead they have this long funeral scene that's about 8 minutes long that Steven Schwarz really wanted to cut but the director really wanted to keep also this is the first time that alpab buz seene wearing a black dress which was an important part of her character you know forming the Wicked Witch of the West character design so they wanted this symbolic moment where alabo wears a black dress for the first time at Dr dilan's funeral Steven Schwarz said who cares she wears

35:20 a black dress one day and that's what's going to happen she'll be wearing one when she goes to Emerald City or she's got that hat and now she's got a dress to match the hat I don't care why she's in Black I'm not going to give you an 8-minute funeral scene just so she can show up in a black dress and they would also cut two songs sung between ginda and alphaba bad situation and farbeit from me and then there was problems with copyright they were very passionate about wanting the red shoes in the musical but they couldn't because those are owned by the MGM film so they do have silver slippers like the book in the musical there is a scene where the red light shines on them them and kind of gives that illusion that they're reflecting red they also had to make a lot of line changes because they made a lot of jokes about the 1939 film by

36:06 galinda but unfortunately those had to be cut because of copyright reasons Steven Schwarz talks about how sad he felt telling Christian he said she didn't have big songs in the same way that Adena did but what she had were some great scenes and really funny lines and suddenly her two funniest scenes were going we had a list of lines that the lawyers for Universal made us cut or they were going to close the show she had somewhere between 6 and 10 giant laughs that had to go so finally in 2003 they would decide that they wanted to preview the show off Broadway in San Francisco and test out material with live audiences and make mistakes and learn to try to restructure the show before it went to Broadway and along with this they would be designing sets lighting doing choreography costuming staging the show was getting this

36:52 steampunk kind of aesthetic that you see with like glinda's bubble and the Wizard and the Dragon they also pulled the idea from the clock Dragon to be on top of the stage to produce the show off Broadway and open on Broadway apparently cost $14 million and the show would start previews May 28th of 2003 but immediately after the first preview they knew that they had a lot of work to do and pages of notes to restructure the show The Creative team describes this time as very tense and Winnie and Schwarz were getting forced to make changes from The Producers Mark Platt David Stone and the director Joe mantell Winnie would say she had a big stress eating problem during this time while Mark plat and David Stone were undereating two of the preview performances had to be cancelled because

37:38 Joe mantello was making changes here are the only known Clips I could find from the off Bradway tryouts somay when we live here we'll have moments like this all the time noely everyone everyone will wish they were Us popular I know about popular [Music] but here you can see that songs like popular in the Wizard and I are kept for the Broadway production and it would get mixed reviews upon opening they would talk about also different problems that they had when running the show off Broadway like Foo would swing in on a

38:24 rope and one time the Rope got wrapped around Kristen's neck and another night a portable stand with spotlights mounted to it fell on Kristen and apparently it knocked her out for a moment but she got up and finished the show Christian would barely grow into the character of ginda and invent her own like ad libs and moments for galinda like the hair toss scene in popular your whole life is going to change and all because of me okay let me show you how to toss your hair you just flip you just flip or or you can use your hand flip it with your hand or well use your whole body you one night apparently she overdid it and gave herself Whiplash and for several performances she wore a Beed version of a neck brace a review of the show at

39:10 this time says the story of Two Witches in training is well-developed and expertly performed Menzel is sympathetic as an idealistic serious new student shunned for her skin color as in the movie She's Margaret Hamilton's green chenowith is irresponsibly spoiled shallow and Vain and as she wore sensationally in the show's outstanding number popular their Mutual dislike growing sympathy flowering friendship and falling out over a boy Norbert Leo buts as a wonderful party hearty Fiero is captivating for the pre-broadway triy outs they would cast Norbert Leo buts to play Fiero another iconic two-time Tony winner who would go on to originate the role on Broadway but a lot of reviewers still felt like Wicked was off at a shaky start in San Francisco there was

39:56 some talk of Chris shanowitz galinda overshadowing Aden Menzel's alphabet and they took steps to make her character more prominent some reviewers also felt like there was problems with alphaba character Arc and the alphaba ginda Fiero love triangle but Kristen chenowith would get glowing reviews for her portrayal of ginda the creative team also planned to take the summer after the pre-broadway tri outs closed and before they were scheduled to start previews on Broadway in October to make small changes to the show there was not any huge overhauls that they need to do to the show but they still felt like there was problems with fierro's introductory song so Steven Schwarz would write a new song for this section instead of which ways the party it would be turned into dancing through life but apparently the director Joe mantell

40:41 didn't like dancing through life so this caused a lot of problems behind the scenes with the creative team and dancing through life was one of the most contested scenes along with the first three scenes in act two it makes sense that dancing through life was causing them a lot of problems because that song it introduced is Fiero it starts ginda and fierro's relationship it starts alphaba and glinda's friendship and it starts Nessa Rose and box relationship and this sets a lot of plot lines in motion that are resolved later on in the show Joe felt like they weren't addressing the problems with alphaba character and instead were putting like Band-Aids on different scenes but during this time they did recast some of the roles for the Broadway production because they felt like they had a clearer vision of the characters Steven Schwarz in his biography revealed that he got so burnt out at this time in

41:27 August of 2003 he quit the show and he left a letter for David Stone saying that he was quitting but then quickly retracted that he was going to quit and I guess David Stone has this letter framed in his office and wicked would finally start previews on Broadway October 8th at the gerswin theater where it's still running today and about a week before their opening on Broadway October 30th they would freeze the show to let the actors settle into their roles so let's talk about the final Frozen version of wicked that we see on Broadway the show starts with the munchkins celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch of the West singing No One Mourns the Wicked and ironically as the munchkin sing this galinda is morning

42:13 alphaba this is Steven schwarz's own twist on ding-dong The Witch's dead obviously they couldn't use that song because it's copyrighted but this is kind of an homage because this song kind of has the same idea they're all celebrating that the witch is dead and Ginder reveals that according to the time Dragon clock she melted on the 13th Hour as a result of a bucket of water so we know that this is following sort of what happened in The Wizard of Oz the time Dragon clock's never really mentioned in the show I think this was just a little Easter egg some of the munchkins start to question ginda if she knows anything about alaba's past and ginda reveals some information about alaba's family life about her mother and father we learned that her father is governor of Munchkin land somewhat similar to the book and her mom is cheating on her husband with a

43:00 mysterious man with a green Elixir and when a munchkin asks galinda if her and alphab were friends then galinda starts to think back to when they first met at shiz and we transition with the song Dear Old Shiz basically like a little school song and galinda of course is showing off and in the scene we start to learn a lot about the characters like galinda is the richest and most entitled student shiz and they live in a far less formal Society there's no almma attending shiz with them and Nessa Rose is also enrolling in shiz and in the musical rather than being born without arms she instead is in a wheelchair and like in the book their father favors Nessa and gives her these beautiful jeweled shoes as a going away present

43:47 and we learn from their father that the only reason he's letting alphaba go to the school is to look after Nessa and protect her originally alphaba and Nessa believed that they'll be rooming together but it turns out that Madame moral has private accommodations for Nessa and galinda and alphaba end up having to room together alphaba is anxious about not being able to protect her sister and when Madame moral starts to wheel Nessa away alphaba has a magical outburst and brings Nessa Rose to her but rather than being upset with alphaba Madame moral sees the magical potential that alphaba has and wants to tutor her she said she would only take students for her seminar if she saw people with amazing magical potential and glinda's immediately jealous because she wanted to get into Madam moral seminar because she aspires to be a

44:33 sorceress and Madam moral tells alphaba that being a witch may lead to her dreams coming true and she may be able to meet the wizard and he could possibly change her skin color if she asked and this motivates alphaba and she sings the song The Wizard and I the Wizard and I is a pretty classic I want song which is pretty common in musical theater that shows the character's desires and motivations these are also really common in especially Disney musicals because every Disney princess kind of has an I want song like moana's how far I'll go or The Little Mermaids part of your world another more classical example of an I want song is over the rainbow from the original Wizard of Oz movie and Steven Schwarz found a way to make references back to that song in this song by having this unlimited musical

45:18 Motif that shows up in the show multiple times and this melody incorporates the first seven notes of Over the Rainbow [Music] unlimited my future is unlimed this song we get a better idea of alaba's character and understand her better she's had this magical power her whole life that she hasn't really been able to control and she's always thought of it as a curse but now she's thinking it could be a talent and she feels like working alongside with the wizard the most respected person in Oz will help her have her own positive reputation she says no father's not proud of you sister acts ashamed all of Oz has to Love You by the wizard you're acclaimed and at the end of this song alphab gets kind of like a vision which actually does end up

46:05 becoming true and is kind of a foreshadowing for what's going to happen in the show but this is when the unlimited theme starts to play and she says but I swear someday there'll be a celebration throughout our that's all to do with me and we know that's No One Mourns the Wicked and she says I'll be so happy I could melt and you know the pale of water causes her to melt and now that Glinda and alphaba are being forced to room together they immediately start to hate each other and they sing this amazing song what is this feeling where they both list all of their problems with the other person Steven Schwarz mentions that this was the fifth song

46:52 that he wrote for this scene originally the song was called bad situation and he says early on in the production all of his songs he wrote had either good bad Wicked or better or something like that in the title which he later abandoned and they wanted this really upbeat hate at First Sight song the original song they had was too slow paced and Joe mantello felt like they needed a more upbeat song for this early in the show I love this change that they made to the musical with ginda and alphab characters having this like passionate hate for each other because they have strong feelings about each other from the beginning that then develops into love but in the book it was very much like they had a slowburn friendship it wasn't so much that they disliked each other and had like a rivalry it was more like they just ignored each other and didn't like each other but this idea that they had like a passionate rivalry makes this song really fun and all of the other students at shiz are on glinda's side

47:38 and hate alphaba as well then we go to them actually in class at shes this is the only class we really see them go to is Dr dillan's class and Dr Dillan is a goat he's kind of the only animal character in the musical I think that's really that important and has that many lines and in the book The Animal subplot was very different because there's two types of animals animals with the capital A were the ones that could talk and then the lowercase a were the ones that could not they were basically like if we catch animals before they develop speech then did they become animals lowercase a and that kind of thing and it was campaigned by the wizard and he was purposefully doing this but in the wicked Universe something mysterious is happening to the animals where they're losing their power to speak and also getting some rights taken away but they don't realize it's because of the Wizard

48:26 and during the Le Dr nman flips over the chalkboard and sees the phrase animal should be seen and not heard which is just straight up what Madame moral says in the book obviously Dr dillman's offended by this and they sing the song Something Bad where they question what's happening in Oz and alphab mentions to Dr Dilan that someone needs to tell the wizard about it cuz maybe the wizard can fix it and then Fiero arrives at school and he's a mixture of Fiero in the books and aick he has the winky Prince identity but rather than being a tribal dark-skinned Prince he's more of a frat party boy and he sings the last song written for the show dancing through life which replaced which ways the party where FOH sings about how he's not interested in studying and just wants to have fun and how life is painless when you're

49:11 brainless and life is frightless when you're thoughtless referencing how Fier is going to become the Scarecrow who wishes to have a brain but in this case Fiero enjoys not having to think so much so they plan to party at the ozdust ballroom and Bach is trying to ask Linda out but she wants Bach out of her way because because she's more interested in Fierro so she manipulates Bach into taking Nessa saying that he would be her hero if he took Nessa and Fiero and ginda become the perfect Barbie Ken couple and Nessa talks to Alaba and tries to tell her that there's a nicer side to galinda thinking that galinda set up her and Bach out of the kindness of her heart and not out of manipulation and when Glinda and her friends are getting ready for the party they find this pointed black hat that they all think is ugly but they start to think oh maybe we should give this to alphaba as a joke so Glenda gives alphaba the black

49:56 hat that becomes the iconic witch hat but on the way to the party Madam moral tells galinda that she's been accepted into her sorcery class because alphaba wanted Glinda to join the class with her or she'd quit and then Glinda starts to regret how she was making fun of alphaba and when alphaba starts to arrive at the party and everyone's giggling and laughing at her and she's dancing without music and Glenda realizes that there's more to alpab than which she realized and joins the dance along with her and this starts the friendship between Glen and alphaba and they spend all night talking which leads into the song Popular where galinda tries to give alphaba a makeover and try to teach her how to be more accepted and popular in society one of the most well-known songs in the musical and a chance for the actress who's playing ginda to show off

50:43 her comedic skills it's very fun silly song but it also shows us layers of how the Oz Society is and how easily swayed it seems like people are in their society by appearances but from this point forward galinda and alphaba are bests friends but when they go to Dr dilan's class he's forcely taken out of the school and fired because animals are no longer permitted to teach definitely a little bit better than his throat getting slit which happens in the book but a new teacher comes to the class Dr nicknick Who has this lion cub trapped in a cage alphaba does some magic allowing her and Fiero to escape with the lion cub while setting the Cub free the two of them have a moment but what about ginda shouldn't Fiero be with someone like her which is what alphab bonders while she sings The Ballad I'm not that girl where she's stopping herself from falling in love with Fiero

51:29 because she knows he's better off with someone else but on a lighter note Madame moral invites alphaba to go to the Emerald City to see the wizard galinda changes her name to Glinda as a protest because Dr dilman called her Glinda this actually also does happen in the book it's such a random throwaway line in the book obviously her deliver is a lot more funny in the musical but ginda decides to accompany alphaba to Emerald City where they have an amazing fun time alphaba and Glinda are happy and feel accepted they fantasize about moving together after they graduate and how it's going to be their new home two friends two good friends two best friends and after an amazing time in

52:14 Emerald City they go to see the wizard and he sings A Sentimental Man which is about him always wanting to be a father and he sees the people of Oz like his children and he wants alphabet to prove herself and prove that she has has magical powers so they ask her to read a spell in this magical book The grimy the wizard says this monkey chis has always dreamed of flying and has alphaba read this spell that allows him to grow wings but after doing this spell alphaba quickly realizes that the wizard is a fraud and he's the one behind the suppression of the animal rights and he's going to use the monkeys as spies so alphaba runs and hides and ginda chases after her Madame moral announces to Oz that Alaba is a wicked witch who should be captured her green skin is put an outward manifestor of her Twisted

53:01 nature this Distortion this repulsion this w w causing the Emerald City Guards to come and find alphaba and Glinda alphaba and Glinda start to sing Defying Gravity where alphaba realizes how powerful she is and she's stronger even Than The Wizard of Oz and she doesn't need him alphaba and Glinda fantasize about going on this journey together but both of them know it's never truly going to happen because of what ginda wants out of life and what alabo wants they're both on different paths and they sing I hope you're happy to each other in a sincere way this song I hope you're happy was originally a whole song that Glenda and alphaba sang but it was cut down to just a verse in Defying Gravity

53:46 alphaba uses the spell book and causes a broom to levitate which she rides off on and go to the Western sky she's realizing that she's done chasing other people's approval and she's going to fight even if that means she has to fight [Applause] alone so in act two we come back to a similar scene we saw in act one where the aians and galinda are all celebrating the people of Oz are spreading rumors about how Wicked alphaba is and all of her different magical powers and the fact that her soul so unclean that water could melt her but galinda is trying to focus on the positives now everyone sees her as a

54:33 hero and she's adored by the public and she's gotten everything she's ever wanted but she can't help but feel this is hollow especially because Madam moral and The Wizard are spreading lies about alphaba that ginda knows aren't true and she doesn't want to just stand by and watch as all of this is happening to alphaba and between this time Fiero has also become captain of the guard and this event is actually a surprise engagement in party a surprise to Fiero but Fiero is more preoccupied with trying to find alphaba and then we see where alphaba is and she's visiting Nessa Rose in Munchkin land alphaba goes to ask Nessa for their father's help but realizes that their father died and Nessa has been stripping munchkins of their rights so she can keep Bach by her side we can tell Bach is definitely no longer interested in her but alphabet is

55:19 trying to convince Nessa that she can help her with the animal oppression situation but then Nessa turns it around on alphaba and is like you'd rather help these animals you've never met than your own sister and she said why haven't you ever tried to use your spells to help me walk basically but now that alphaba has the grimy she thinks maybe there is a spell that could help Nessa walk and alphaba casts a spell on their shoes that their father gave her and she is able to start walking she thinks that this is going to change everything and now Bach will actually want to be with her but sadly she's mistaken and when she tells Bach then he says now you won't need me and I can leave and they sing a song referencing back to what they sung in dancing through life where boach tells Nessa that wants to leave so he can try to stop Glinda and fiera's engagement this immediately angers Nessa knowing that after all this time he's

56:05 still been in love with galinda and that he's lost his heart for her and Nessa grabs the grimy and starts reading it and then boach says it feels like his heart's shrinking and he starts dying but Nessa begs alphaba to fix the spell alphaba tells her that there's no way that she can reverse the spell but she can try to do something to save his life and this leads alphaba to change him into the Tin Man so he can survive without a heart in this scene Nessa also sings the Wicked Witch of the East which is a song that's not on the soundtrack and alphaba flees to the Wizard's Chambers so when alphaba is there she's searching for a way to free all the monkeys when she's there she runs into the wizard and The Wizard tries to get Alaba on his side and he sings this song Wonderful where he basically says that

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