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Wicked (known in full as Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz) is a stage musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), which serves as a revisionist parallel novel to L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz . Wicked tells the story of Elphaba Thropp and Galinda Upland, two young women in the Land of Oz who are pushed into becoming the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good, respectively. The musical was produced by Marc Platt, Jon B. Platt and David Stone through Universal Stage Productions, with direction by Joe Mantello and choreography by Wayne Cilento.
Contents
- Awards and nominations
- Original Broadway production
- North American tours
- Chicago production
- London production
- Melbourne production
- Brazilian production
- References
Although the original Broadway production received mixed reviews and was initially panned by The New York Times , audience reception was much more positive. The success of Wicked on Broadway resulted in subsequent productions in Chicago, Los Angeles, London's West End, and San Francisco, as well as international productions in Japan, Germany, Australia and elsewhere. Additionally, two North American tours have visited over thirty cities in the United States and Canada. The show celebrated its 20th anniversary on October 30, 2023, and is currently the fourth-longest-running Broadway show in history, [1] having played 7,774 performances as of December 24, 2023. [2] Wicked has broken box office records around the world, holding weekly-gross-takings records in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, and London, and obtaining the record for biggest opening in the West End (£100,000 in the first hour on sale). [3] In the week ending January 2, 2011, the London, Broadway, and both national touring productions all broke the record for the highest weekly gross. [4] [5] Both the West End production and the North American tour have been seen by over two million patrons. [6] The original show was nominated for ten Tony Awards in 2004 and won three, including Best Actress in a Musical for Idina Menzel. It also won six Drama Desk Awards and one Grammy Award, while the London show has been the recipient of five Laurence Olivier Award nominations, winning one.