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From defying gravity to breaking box office records, this emerald phenomenon has transformed musical theatre forever! Join us as we explore how the story of Oz's misunderstood green witch revolutionized Broadway with female empowerment, diverse perspectives, and belty pop scores. Which aspects of Wicked's legacy shine brightest for you? Let us know in the comments!
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00:00There are wonders like I've never seen. It's all green. It's all green. I think we've come to the place where we belong.
00:07Welcome to Ms. Mojo. And today, we're looking at all the ways this generation-defining musical has changed Broadway. For good. Minor spoilers to come.
00:17So let's start, because you've got an awfully long way to go.
00:23It spawned the era of musical retellings. Adaptations are nothing new for Broadway.
00:30In fact, the majority of all musicals are adaptations of some kind.
00:34Wicked itself is based on the novel by Gregory Maguire.
00:37But the success of Wicked definitely led to quirkier book-to-musical retellings.
00:42And with an assist from me to be who you'll be, instead of dreary who you were, well, are.
00:48There's nothing that can stop you from becoming popular. War.
00:53Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 only adapted a sliver of Tolstoy's War and Peace, for instance.
00:59The musical adaptation of Matilda also took liberties with Roald Dahl's work.
01:15While overall faithful to the source material, these musicals have more of an interpretive slant than in previous generations.
01:22And, of course, you have your actual Wicked parodies and homages.
01:26Starkid Productions' twisted musical, following Aladdin's Jafar, now a misunderstood royal vizier.
01:33Let them twist my words. Let the people scorn me.
01:37Who cares if no one will ever mourn me.
01:39With the recent viral success of Epic, the musical, itself a musical interpretation of Homer's The Odyssey,
01:45it's clear Wicked's influence is still going strong.
01:48And the world is all about to change.
01:52Is it finally time for the challenge I arrange?
01:59More female empowerment themes.
02:01While some musicals before Wicked had feminist themes,
02:04this was one of the few that really gave us a truly inspiring heroine.
02:08Unlimited.
02:12Together we're unlimited.
02:17Together we'll be the greatest team there's ever been.
02:22Elphaba Throp's unconventional looks and passion for justice
02:25lead Oz's corrupt elite to smear her as the infamous Wicked Witch of the West.
02:29The undoubted highlight of the show is when Elphaba finally breaks free from societal convention
02:34and decides to strike out on her own.
02:36And nobody in all of Oz, no wizard that there is or was,
02:44is ever gonna bring the leader.
02:53Look at how the seats we can't walk.
02:56This rich theme of female empowerment in the face of massive societal disapproval
03:01is echoed in later musicals.
03:03There's Elle Woods defying dumb blonde stereotypes
03:05and finding her true vocation in Legally Blonde.
03:21Misunderstood historical figures also get a voice in Six,
03:24with Henry VIII's wives telling their side of the story.
03:28Overall, it's a very good decade for musicals about female empowerment,
03:32and it's all thanks to Wicked.
03:33But now we're one behind the cat's glory, too.
03:40And yes, a spinning story where we could take our proud glory...
03:46More female leads.
03:48Before Wicked, the typical pattern for Broadway women was the leading lady,
03:52usually a soprano in the main A plot,
03:54and her friend or relative, usually a mezzo in a comic B plot.
03:58We see this pattern occur in Oklahoma and Carousel,
04:12but also West Side Story and Guys and Dolls.
04:15Wicked, with its female co-leads, subverted this.
04:19Since then, musicals with female leads or even a majority female cast
04:22have been more common in recent years.
04:24A weird move, a ship bloated from its moray,
04:28and led by a wind off, like a stream that meets a boat,
04:32a sea dropped by a bird in the wood.
04:36Heathers and Mean Girls, both film-to-musical adaptations,
04:40are definitely the direct result of Wicked's influence,
04:43complete with similar high school Mean Girl dynamics.
04:46And as mentioned before,
04:48Six focuses exclusively on the six wives of Henry VIII,
04:51with no other characters to distract us from the Queen's fabulousness.
04:55Broadway still has ways to go before true parody,
04:58but things have definitely improved in recent years.
05:01Welcome to the show, to the history mix.
05:04Switching up the flow as we add the prefix.
05:08Everybody knows that we used to be six wives.
05:13More diverse perspectives.
05:15It's hard not to see an allegory of the racialized outsider
05:18in Wicked's green heroine and her trials and tribulations.
05:21Maybe some of us are just different.
05:25Well, it seems the artichoke is steamed.
05:28Broadway musicals have been tackling the issue of racism
05:33and centering marginalized characters
05:35as early as Kern and Hammerstein's Showboat
05:37and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.
05:40Although Wicked operates on a metaphorical level,
05:43its success has led to more musicals
05:44focusing on similar themes of difference and identity.
05:47There's Kander and Ev's last musical,
05:49The Scottsboro Boys, about the infamous trial.
05:52Lin-Manuel Miranda began his flourishing career
05:55within the Heights,
05:55following a Dominican-American neighborhood of Washington Heights.
06:07His breakout hit Hamilton famously gained praise
06:12with its color-forward cast.
06:14Broadway's interest in marginalized narratives still goes strong,
06:18although its desire is often more than its actions.
06:21Still, we have Wicked to thank for that.
06:23We hold these truths to be self-evident
06:25that all men are created equal.
06:27And when I meet Thomas Jefferson,
06:29I'll compel them to include women in the sequel.
06:32Right!
06:33Record, box office, and international productions.
06:36More pertinent to Broadway itself, however,
06:38is Wicked's tremendous earnings.
06:41It broke even in 15 months,
06:42and to this day earns $1.6 million a week,
06:46breaking the record held by the producers.
06:48Wicked's North American tour was also very successful,
07:02becoming the longest-running Broadway musical in Chicago.
07:06In 2023, the musical surpassed Cats
07:08as the fourth-longest-running Broadway show in history.
07:11International productions have also been successful.
07:14Willemaine Vercaich's powerhouse vocals in the 2007 German production
07:18must be heard to be believed.
07:29Dana Paula in the Mexican production
07:31became the youngest Elphaba to grace the stage,
07:34performing the role at just 18 years old.
07:36Non-replica productions in Japan and Brazil
07:53have also been staged.
07:54It's clear Wicked has become
07:56Broadway's most lucrative musical and export to date.
07:59Producers and executives rejoice.
08:01Belty pop scores became fashionable.
08:17Stephen Schwartz's score is definitely not the first
08:19to showcase soaring pop vocals,
08:21or even fun coloratura riffs.
08:23The love affair between Broadway musicals
08:32and high and long notes is legendary by now.
08:35But it's hard not to notice Wicked's distinctive pop sound
08:38in subsequent musicals,
08:40especially its iconic Defying Gravity battle cry.
08:43Wicked officially ushered in the era of the pop belt,
08:58with all kinds of musicals taking time
09:00to showcase their performer's stellar vocals and riffs.
09:03And let's not forget the most Defying Gravity-coded song
09:19ever to come out of Disney.
09:20Let it go, let it go, can't hold you back anymore.
09:28That's right, Frozen's clear thematic and score parallels
09:31to Wicked have not gone unnoticed.
09:33Idina Menzel was even the voice actress
09:35of yet another troubled magical girl
09:37whose name starts with an E.
09:39Frozen also made it to Broadway,
09:41with Let It Go ending on a big high note,
09:44just like Defying Gravity.
09:45The cold never bothered me anyway.
09:56Amazing.
09:57More musicals with complex themes.
10:00Wicked the musical is certainly a simplified
10:02and even Disney-fied version of Gregory Maguire's
10:05masterful but very adult novel about the nature of evil.
10:08But the show does offer sharp critiques
10:10about the power of propaganda to obscure the truth
10:13and derail the pursuit of justice.
10:14There's also the allure of power and privilege,
10:33exemplified by the ambitious Glinda
10:35and eventually rejected by the principled Elphaba.
10:37Dark themes in musicals are nothing new, of course,
10:40but it's clear Broadway's typical musical comedy
10:43is becoming more fraught with thematic consequence.
10:47I miss the mountains.
10:52I miss the highs and lows.
10:56The cult hit Ride the Cyclone follows a group of teenagers
11:00after they die at an amusement park.
11:03Weeper hits like Next to Normal
11:04and Dear Evan Hansen explored mental health issues.
11:07With pop scores and dark material,
11:10it is clear that subsequent musicals
11:11have taken a page from Wicked's grimmery.
11:13Turn on the outside, always looking at it.
11:16Will I ever be more than I've always been?
11:20Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping on the glass.
11:23You're waving through a window.
11:26More musicals with political themes.
11:29Wicked is a very political work.
11:31There is Maguire's political thriller of a novel, of course,
11:34but even L. Frank Baum's original book
11:36has also lent itself to political interpretations.
11:39Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
11:42Political musicals are nothing new to Broadway.
11:45A mid-2000s Broadway,
11:47inundated with Disney musicals and tourist-friendly shows,
11:51Wicked's Disney-friendly plot,
11:52coupled with its sharply political themes, stood out.
11:56Subsequent politically-themed musicals have followed suit.
11:59Hadestown reinterprets the Orpheus and Eurydice myth
12:02in terms of 1920s Great Depression-era politics
12:05with clear parallels to our own politics.
12:08How does the wall keep us free?
12:10The wall keeps out the enemy
12:13And we build a wall to keep us free
12:16That's why we build a wall
12:18We build a wall to keep us free
12:21Hamilton proudly wears its neoliberal, pro-immigrant politics on its sleeve.
12:26Whether lightly or heavily developed,
12:29most Broadway musicals nowadays have more of a political bite,
12:32even if their subject isn't overtly so.
12:34Monsieur Hamilton
12:36Monsieur Lafayette
12:37In command where you belong
12:38How you say, no sweat, we're finally on the field, we've had quite a run
12:42Immigrants, we get the job done
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13:02Behind the Emerald Curtain Tour Show
13:04There have been many behind-the-scenes featurettes and interviews for Broadway shows
13:08Sometimes it could be very moving and serious and sometimes it was very pop and light and funny
13:15And it turns on a dime in this show and to navigate that is very, very hard
13:22But few Broadway musicals have a full show on how they actually staged the musical
13:27Created by longtime cast member Sean McCourt and swing Anthony Galdi
13:31The show is 90 minutes focused on how exactly Wicked is produced and mounted on the stage
13:36The thing with the show that's really interesting for me was
13:40Finding different vocabulary and stylistic ways of moving the characters
13:47There are many interesting and insightful details on the hair and makeup
13:51Especially creating the green paint for Elphaba's skin
13:53But there are also special problems Wicked as a production had to resolve
13:58There is Elphaba's magic, of course
14:00But also the creation of the flying monkeys, the wizard's Oz head
14:04And the clock of the time-traveled dragon
14:06He showed me some of the Oz sketches and he asked me to kind of come up with some kind of huge metallic dragon
14:12That made serpentine movements and mouth open and closed and wings flapped
14:17If your favorite musical has a behind-the-scenes featurette of some kind, you can thank Wicked for that
14:22And you get this thunderous applause
14:24The first time that happened in San Francisco, I was literally like blown away
14:28As a theater artist, that's what we do, that's the payoff
14:31Which other ways do you see the Wicked influence on Broadway?
14:34Let us know in the comments down below
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