Success is just 'Wicked'

Love the 'Oz' thing or hate it, musical takes engaging road

By Christopher Blank

Friday, June 19, 2009

When one considers the many stage musicals these days based on well-known movies or cobbled together from popular songs, the 2003 Broadway hit "Wicked" seems like an old-fashioned, traditional show.

Traditional, in the sense that, like the classics "South Pacific" or "Cats," it was inspired by a book.

From the pages of Gregory Maguire's best-selling novel about a feisty university student with green skin, composer Stephen Schwartz crafted a musical that won critical raves and three Tony Awards.

And yet, the show's box-office success can hardly be attributed to a great read, or even the brilliant musical creator of "Godspell" and "Pippin." Maguire's book is an extension of the fantasy world created by author Frank Baum, whose children's story "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" subsequently became one of the world's most popular movies.

In a way, "Wicked" is a perfect storm of cross-promotion that spans generations, media platforms and demographics. It appeals to those who love the "Wizard of Oz," those who hate the "Wizard of Oz," adults, kids, outsiders and insiders.

About 17 million people and counting have seen the musical in one of its four North American or four international companies, which have grossed more than $1.35 billion. The Broadway production itself still has advance ticket sales of about $27 million, a figure that producers call "unprecedented" after six years.

The last touring musical to sit down for a three-week run at the Orpheum theater in Memphis, where "Wicked" opens on Wednesday, was Disney's "The Lion King" in 2007. By last week, the show was 90 percent sold (51,400 seats out of a possible 58,000), a success that compares with the first run of "Phantom of the Opera" or "The Lion King."

"'Wicked' falls into a unique category of theater," said Orpheum president Pat Halloran. "It's consistent with other blockbusters for three reasons. One: people are familiar with the subject. Two: It brings the whole family. Three: It has great word-of-mouth. The music is phenomenal, and technically it has everything from flying monkeys to witches on brooms. It's a huge production."

How "Wicked" became a billion-dollar industry, however, is the fortuitous result of the novel first failing as a movie.

Marc Platt, the show's lead producer, was president of production at Universal Studios when Demi Moore's production company acquired the rights to the 1995 novel. He liked the book, but not the scripts that were being developed from it.

"Something was lacking in all the screenplays I read," he said. "They had no magic in them. Then one day Stephen Schwartz called and said it would make a great musical. The moment he said that, I agreed with him."

As a movie producer, Platt had shepherded screenplays such as "Silence of the Lambs," "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Jerry Maguire" to the big screen. But for him, the biggest problem for a film version of "Wicked" was the legacy of the "Wizard of Oz."

"Everybody knows the 1939 movie," Platt said. "It's a cultural reference point that you can't get around. It was my hope that the stage production would become its own cultural reference point. And it has with many young people who've seen the show. Years from now, it can become a film, but I think that when folks think about 'Wicked' they are going to think about going to see the musical."

Platt said he liked the political twists of the novel: that the Wicked Witch of the West, or Elphaba, is an underdog, an outsider, who has been unfairly labeled as bad.

Born with emerald green skin, she goes off to the university and shares a dorm room with the popular and beautiful Galinda (later, Glinda the Good Witch of the North). Elphaba has magic powers, but when she finds out that the Wizard wants to exploit her, it begins a shift in her world view.

The unexpected arrival of Dorothy Gale from Kansas precipitates her demise.

"The musical is very consistent with 'The Wizard of Oz,'" Platt said. "But if you really get the experience of 'Wicked,' you are going to see 'Wizard' in a different light."

Actress Marcie Dodd is one person who says she'll never see the film the same way.

When she first landed the role of Elphaba in the touring production, she studied Margaret Hamilton's prickly mannerisms as the film's Wicked Witch of the West to add villainous angularity to her character.

"Now watching the movie is like doing homework," she said.

Not so when she was a kid. At age 3, Dodd was singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for her family. She studied music in college, eventually working at Disneyland, where she played the role of Snow White in a park musical.

"A lot of my friends giggle at that," Dodd said. "They tell me that I just couldn't stick with the princess thing."

Now Dodd puts on the heavy green makeup every night, and sings what she calls "a beast of a role."

"This is such a strong role for a woman," Dodd said. "You have to have a high level of strength in your voice to sing it eight times a week."

"Wicked" is a prologue, of sorts, for a tornado of Ozian events this fall. On Aug. 14, the Orpheum screens the film version of "The Wizard of Oz," and Dec. 15-20, a touring production of the classic story with Harold Arlen's music comes to the Orpheum.

Also, on Nov. 7 and 8, Ballet Memphis revives its own all-dance version of Baum's story set to a classical score.

"Wicked"

Opens Wednesday at the Orpheum theater, 203 S. Main, and runs through July 12. Shows are 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $38-$138. Call 525-3000.

A day-of-performance lottery for a limited number of orchestra seats will be held daily, about 2½ hours prior to show for people present at the box office. Names will be drawn for a limited number of orchestra seats at $25 each, cash only, with a limit of two tickets per person.