Something “Wicked” this way came, and today, after 1,500 performances, the Broadway musical is bidding farewell to the city where the “untold story of the witches of Oz” made its home for the past 3½ years.
Since the “dedicated” Chicago production of the 2003 Broadway hit by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman opened here in June, 2005, it has been seen by more than 2.9 million people — from Chicago area theatergoers to train-, plane- and busloads of tourists. It has earned a staggering $210 million in box office revenues, and that doesn’t even begin to suggest the collateral benefits that accrued to local hotels, restaurants, garages, taxi drivers, retail stores and all the rest. The show also has been a significant source of Broadway-level paychecks for a number of Chicago actors who for years have made their peace with regional theater salaries.
So, after today’s sold-out matinee, wave goodbye to those fiercely competitive witches, Elphaba and Glinda, and to all their cohorts: That spikey sorceress Madame Morrible; the witches’ joint love interest, Fiyero; Elphaba’s crippled sister, Nessarose; that evil army of flying monkeys, and even the corrupt Wizard of Oz himself.
And while you can easily argue with the musical’s artistic merits (I certainly did, though there are hordes out there to oppose me), you can’t dispute how immensely crowd-pleasing the show was from the start, particularly with the thousands of young girls who seemed to feed on its insider-versus-outsider personal politics. Like the song says: “It’s all about popular! / It’s not about aptitude / It’s the way you’re viewed.”
In fact, it’s a good bet that it will be many years before another Broadway show will be capable of demonstrating such staying power here, even if “Jersey Boys” (a show with special appeal for a considerably older demographic) has been playing Chicago since October, 2007, and a new block of tickets has just gone on sale for shows through July 12.
” ‘Wicked’ has had an incredibly positive effect on how Chicago is viewed as a long-run town,” said Lou Raizin, president of Broadway in Chicago. “It is a huge show that has had to operate at a very high gross to keep going. And it continued to run all these years with very full, often sold-out houses, doing incredibly strong business despite the economic downturn. It was so successful, in fact, that we had to keep a number of other shows in a holding pattern because we just didn’t have the theater real estate for them to land here.”
Raizin also noted that “Wicked” went a long way toward differentiating Chicago from other markets on the national touring circuit.
“We thought we’d have a success story if ‘Wicked’ made it to 12 months,” he confessed. “And then when it got to 18 months we thought we all could pat ourselves on the back. Now I think we can really say that this show was tremendously rewarding and vindicating in terms of the investment the city has made in the Loop theater district. There are still a number of things we need to do in order to make Chicago a truly competitive market, whether for pre-Broadway runs or long runs like ‘Wicked.’ We don’t come out all that well in terms of labor and advertising costs here, and we’re looking to the state legislature to give us a form of tax credit relief along the lines of what they do for the film industry.”
Talk to some of the veteran Chicago actors who have been part of the “Wicked” company here and they are universally enthusiastic. Even Rondi Reed, who played Madame Morrible — and then temporarily left the show to be part of Steppenwolf’s “August: Osage County” on Broadway (picking up a Tony Award for best supporting actress along the way) — raves about the experience.
“‘Wicked’ has been unlike anything else I have experienced in my career so far — one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Reed said. “It is, of course, a project of huge proportions and big budgets. And I learned so much, about so many things, in ways I never dreamed possible. To be a part of that theatrical juggernaut is something that comes along once in a blue moon. I had never done such a long run before, either — never been asked to be so consistent, so disciplined, have the kind of stamina and heart it takes to play on that level. You are responsible not just to yourself, but to the other 125 people who show up for each performance behind the scenes — in the orchestra pit, the wardrobe room, the sound board, the management office, the ones pulling the ropes, making it all happen and making it seem like magic in the process.”
And as Reed observed: “To the audience — and odds are there is someone out there who has never seen a live show before — this is the moment it happens. A husband who said he hated musicals and was dragged along got swept up in the story. Or four generations of one family who came to see the show together for Christmas used it to celebrate their mom’s victory over cancer. And oddly enough, doing ‘Wicked’ in the 2,200-seat Oriental prepared me for ‘August,’ so that a Broadway theater didn’t overwhelm me. It taught me about the size of performance needed to reach the back rows and still maintain integrity.”
“Financially, ‘Wicked’ was an opportunity to get back on track for many of us, myself included,” said Reed. “Every actor should be blessed by having this sort of job come into their life. I hope it happens for more of our hard-working Chicago talent in the years to come.”
For Barbara Robertson, who replaced Reed as Madame Morrible, the financial rewards of working in “Wicked” also were greatly appreciated.
“My daughter was a high school senior when I got the job, and having that salary meant I could better afford to send her to the small liberal arts college that was her first choice, rather than to the large school she didn’t like as much but had gotten a nice scholarship for,” said Robertson.
“I’ve made my whole career based out of Chicago, and about 95 percent of the work I’ve done has been here,” said the actress. “But rarely do you have the chance here to play to an audience of more than 2,000 people as I did in ‘Wicked,’ with all that energy that was so absolutely exhilarating. At the end of every show it felt like being onstage with the Beatles.”
As for the impact of “Wicked” on the Chicago theater community, Robertson noted: “Many of the actors in the cast who arrived here from other cities have considered staying here, and asked me for advice about getting into the Chicago market. And out-of-towners in the audience who loved the show would sometimes come to the stage door and ask me to recommend other shows they could see here.”
Heidi Kettenring, who played Nessarose during two separate stints in ‘Wicked,” explained her experience this way: “On those days when the audience was really into it, and it was packed to the gills, you could feel it in your chest. “I didn’t have a huge amount of stage time in this role, which was fine,” said Kettenring. “And frankly, I can’t imagine how the two witches were able to do what they did for eight performances every week. Even in the biggest roles I’ve played — Jo in ‘Little Women’ and Fanny Brice in ‘Funny Girl’ — I knew I had a limited run of three months and could soon take a big breath. For the witches it is a marathon, and I can’t even wrap my brain around what it must be like to play Glinda and Elphaba for nine months straight.
“Of course the money was wonderful, too,” said the actress, “and I feel really blessed that I could have that job for such long periods of time. It opened some doors. I had a couple of auditions in New York this past year, and while that might be thanks to my great agent, having ‘Wicked’ on your resume certainly helps.”
For Gene Weygandt, who played the Wizard here, being “in the hit of the decade” gave him a thrill.
“I spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s in Los Angeles, and it was nice to come back here and see the changes,” said the actor. “And this show attracted people from every state and many foreign countries. One woman I talked to after the show told me she was from New Jersey and came here just to see ‘Wicked.’ I said, ‘You could have just crossed the bridge,’ but she said she’d heard all the buzz about the Chicago production.”
“I also sense that a number of New York producers now have a different feeling about how viable Chicago is for long runs, and might be more willing to even look at smaller houses, like the Royal George and the Mercury,” said Weygandt. “Producers also have gotten a fresh take on Chicago talent. But the real kick of the show came when an average-guy kind of dad came to the stage door with his daughters and told me it was their third time seeing the show.”
For Jeff Dumas, who was part of the ensemble and covered for Boq, the Munchkin attracted to Glinda but stuck with Nessarose, the whole thing is simple: “Every actor wants a gig like ‘Wicked.” In my own case, the salary enabled me to pay off some debts and made it possible for my wife to start her psychotherapy practice. It also opened the door for me to get a role in the national tour of ‘Spamalot.’ “
“What’s interesting is that you really have to take responsibility for yourself in a show like ‘Wicked’ because it’s so massive and the production really swirls around you,” said the actor. “And even if you don’t really do anything exceptional, the theater is electric with 2,200 totally enthusiastic people in the audience.”
Just think of it as defying gravity.
0 Responses to “We made it popular…”