Wicked History

The Making of Wicked the Musical

Wicked History - Development of the Musical

Trace the Wicked's development process by following links

Listen to our podcast Adapting Wicked For Stage: A Stephen Schwartz Podcast

Defying Gravity, the new Schwartz bio, is the best source on Wicked's development

New from Applause Books: Defying Gravity includes a fascinating account on the making of Wicked featuring comments by Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, Joe Mantello, the producers, Gregory Maguire, and others. Gregory Maguire describes the book as "A wonderful read. And the Wicked section provides a comprehensive account of a thoroughly recondite and even mysterious event: the gestation and birth of a phenomenon."

For more information or to order the book online visit defyinggravitythebook.com

More Wicked history

• ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway features Wicked, as well as three other shows. Visit: Wicked in ShowBusiness for photographs, details about the Wicked interviews with Stephen Schwartz, Idina Menzel and others, and ordering information.
• The Schwartz Scene - back issues
• John Bucchino and - Wicked origins
• How Winnie Holzman joined Schwartz in writing Wicked
• Schwartz and Maguire comments - Maguire page and more by Schwartz (below)
• Michael Cole describes early Wicked readings
• Wicked opened for its pre-Broadway try-out in San Francisco in the summer of 2003. Read about the Wicked San Francisco to New York transition
  
• SCORE
• Wicked's Songs - Stories behind the songs (also lyrics pages)
• Stephen Oremus describes the making of music arrangements, Andy Barrett and William Brohn describe how the orchestrations were developed.
• Stephen Schwartz, Wicked, Maguire interviews on NPR [new browser window]
• Stephen Schwartz interview with Decca - writing the songs for WICKED [new browser window]
  
  WICKED SETS AND COSTUMES
• Read all about Wicked's costumes
• Entertainment Design Magazine published a detailed article on Wicked's sets, costumes, and lighting in Feb 1, 2004 issue. http://entertainmentdesignmag.com...
  
  ETC.
• Don't miss the DVD of Broadway the American Musical that includes, as a special feature, a substantial segment on the making of Wicked with interviews.
• Q and A with Stephen Schwartz on Broadway.com (includes WICKED info)
• Stephen Schwartz's Q and A about Wicked history on StephenSchwartz.com forum [new browser window]
• Wicked in San Francisco page for the pre-Broadway trial.
• (Check back here later for more pages and a forthcoming book)
• Check your library for VARIETY Magazine issue for April 26 - May 2, 2004.

Misc. Notes on Story Evolution:

Stephen Schwartz in an interview - summer 2001:

"We spent a lot of time before starting to really write at all. We spent about a year at least - Winnie and I and Marc Platt - working on an outline. We went through several drafts of the outline, until we really felt we had the story telling right. It's a very complicated story to work out; there's a lot of plot, there are a lot of relationships between the characters that either had to be used or dropped, there are a lot of surprises and twists and turns to the plot that needed to be figured out so everything worked logically. It was almost like plotting a mystery novel. I remember reading an interview with J.K. Rowling who of course wrote the HARRY POTTER books and how she had spent a year working out the world - for example the rules of Quidditch before she wrote anything. We did a similar amount of work.

"...Once we started writing even though things have change and will continue to change, songs get dropped, or re-written or scene's get combined, the essence of the show and the structure of it hasn't changed. When Joe Mantello came in as director, he of course had several ideas and suggestions many of which we are doing because we thought they were terrific but nothing of which I would call really substantially changing the structure."

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Brian Altman, a fan of Stephen's stage and movie musicals, shared an insight based on his reading of the novel and his appreciation of Schwartz musicals like Pippin, Children of Eden, The Prince of Egypt,and Godspell.

"The greatest thing about these guys (Maguire and Schwartz)--in addition to the extraordinary stories they tell-- is the WAY they tell them. Each of their stories is so cleverly, compassionately, conveyed. There is nothing out of the ordinary in the characters or the way they speak. The wonderful thing is that they all seem real to us. Even GOD himself (give or take a few miracles) is seen as being just like us. Elphaba is just a girl who happens to be green. Moses is a man who was mislead by his new parents...Pippin is just trying to find his way...Noah is a father, trying to keep his family together...and safe...and so on. It's the simple passion with which the truths and decisions are relayed that make them so compelling and fascinating."

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