National Wicked Day celebrates one of the longest running shows on Broadway. Wicked won 3 Tony Awards in 2004, while having 10 nominations. It also won 6 Drama Desk Awards and one Grammy award.
Wicked is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, telling the story of the Bad Witch, Elphaba. Glinda, who is a popular witch at the school, and Elphaba don’t really get along at first. The musical shows how they befriend each other, and how Elphaba becomes ‘The Wicked Witch’ and Glinda, ‘The Good Witch’.
Wicked has been performed nearly 8,000 times and had seen by over 50 million people. It’s been translated in 6 different languages, and is the 4th longest running musical. ‘Wicked‘ is one of the most successful musicals on Broadway.
Gregory Maguire wrote the book and published it in 1995. It was a hit novel for adults and was eventually turned into a musical in 2003. The original Elphaba was Idina Menzel and the original Glinda was Kristin Chenoweth.
There were 4 books in the Wicked series, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, (published 1995) Son of a Witch, (published 2005) A Lion Among Men, (published 2008) Out of Oz (published 2011).
The feature film version of Wicked is set to premier later this month.
You can celebrate national Wicked Day by watching the movie or reading the Wicked series. You can sing along to the Wicked soundtrack or learn more about the history of Wicked.
