So, the smash musical Wicked is at Gammage right now. It is here all month long and it is based on a book of the same name. The story is about the history of the Wicked Witch of the West from her birth to how she became wicked and goes all the way through to her death by Dorothy. It is a great story because it has an explanation for her greenness, her friendship with Glinda the Good Witch, how her sister (the wicked witch of the East) came to own the slippers, how the scarecrow, tinman, and cowardly lion came to be, and even how she got all those flying monkeys.
Well every night of the show, there is a ticket lottery of 20 first row tickets. All you have to do is show up between 5-5:30pm the night of the show and submit your name. Then at 5:30 they call names until the tickets are gone. You can have up to two tickets and you have to pay $25 per ticket in cash (considering these are $70 tickets, it makes it even cooler!). I haven't ever read the book or seen the play, but that is a great deal and I couldn't pass it up!
My coworker Marc and I decided to submit our names yesterday, since we were on campus at around the right time (remember we have all month to do this, as many times as we want). A couple other coworkers went too and they both put my name in as well. we were a little worried that it was against the rules, so Marc and I decided if my name was called we would rush up and get the tickets in case they called my name again, haha.
Well, turns out, I was lucky number 7 of 10 names called out! Marc and I screamed like little girls when we heard my name and were as excited as if it were Christmas morning! We were seats 27 and 29 in the front row!! It put us a little to the left, but they were great seats! Everyone I knew who had seen the show was obsessed. I thought I would enjoy the show, but not go crazy or anything. Yeah...by intermission I had to remind myself to breathe because I had been holding my breath during the last 10 minutes! It really is an unbelievable show - and sooo funny! Glinda is an over-the-top naive, perky girl used to getting her way - who reminds me a lot of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. (Side note: turns out the guy who played the male lead, Fiyero, actually played Warner - Elle's ex-boyfriend that she follows to law school - in Legally Blonde the Musical).
The big twist of the whole story is that the wicked witch is not in fact wicked, but a bleeding-heart equal rights activist (in Oz the animals could talk and be part of society, until the Wizard dictates they no longer speak there minds and become separate from humans because "every society needs a good enemy"), who has been ostracized her whole life for being green. She and Glinda are college roommates, and the scarecrow and tinman are actually humans named Fiyero and Boc who have tragic relationships with the wicked witches and Glinda. Accidents happen, and it seems that once a spell is cast, it cannot be reversed, so to keep Fiyero (her love interest) from being killed, the wicked witch makes him immortal...a scarecrow.
The other cool thing is that the wicked witch has a name: Elphaba. It is an homage to L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Also, she becomes the wicked witch after she refused to help the wizard make all the animals subservient, and he decided to libel her name in a smear campaign.
It was sooooooooo good! I am glad Marc and I got tickets the very first time we tried, and I really do think I could go back and see it again in a week or two. Oh yeah, and for winning the tickets we get a green button that says "I won the Wicked lottery."
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4 comments:
Okay, toooooooo cooooooool!!!!! And, now it's time for a new Harry Potter movie. Could life get any better????
Good for you! Thanks for the synopsis - I have often wondered if I would like the play, but have heard that it is really entertaining and special. The Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie over all and I wondered if this play would take away from my enjoyment. I still watch the movie every couple of years, and remember clearly the first time I saw it in color, because we only had black and white TV while I was growing up. There is a scene in Oz where a carriage takes Dorothy and others around and mention is made of the "horse of a different color" drawing the carriage. I didn't know that was funny until I was married and watched the movie on a color TV - the horse is a different color every time they show it!
Okay - enough of how old I am! B&W television!
Good for you for winning the Wicked lottery!
I'm so glad you got to see it! I saw it in Chicago with Dave a couple years back (I already knew all the music- musical theater nerd, you know!), and it was awesome. When I found out it was coming to Tempe (again) when I was gone, I was pretty upset. I'm totally glad you got to see it, though. Idina Menzel (Maureen from the Rent movie) was the original Elphaba on Broadway (Chrissie actually saw that): there are rumors that she might actually be doing a guest thing here in SF (color me excited, haha). Can you tell that Wicked is in my top 5 musicals?
Miss you!
Harry Potter 6 - I am so excited!
Margie, I think you would like the play. It hardly touches on dorothy at all (as in: you never see her) but it can be kind of odd to be sympathetic towards the Wicked Witch when you are so used to her being evil in the movie.
I don't know if you would like the book as much. apparently it is much darker and sadder. The play has a happy ending that apparently does not exist in the book. I know personally when I know a book has a tragic ending, it tends to make me not want to read it.
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