Hooray for the Chicago Tribune!!!

[DefyingGravity12]

Today's Chicago Tribune had three or four pages all about Wicked and then a separate interview with Gregory Maguire. Yay!!!! I read it multiple times! They were talking about how awesome it is and how easy it is to relate to Elphaba and Glinda. Also, it mentioned how stupid critics were for not giving Wicked good reviews. It was a really good article, and I'm not sure but it might be on www.chicagotribune.com

[FaeAtShiz]

Here's the one about the show: www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0504230272apr24,1,2136085.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
I think it's interesting that someone said it's a girly show. I'll believe that, based on the gender ratio on this board when it first started.

And the interview with McGuire: www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0504230254apr24,1,2005013.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

[stars in the sky]

You need to register to see the articles...anyone mind copy/pasting?

[elphiefan]

Great Articles! I want to go to Chicago....

[ElphieatShiz]

stars said:

You need to register to see the articles...anyone mind copy/pasting?

That's interesting. I can see the articles without registering.

[stars in the sky]

Freakish...well, I still can't see 'em

[elphiefan]

Hmm...I can see them. Well, here's the first part of the first article:

'Wicked' secrets
Getting to the bottom of the Broadway blockbuster that nobody predicted

By Chris Jones
Tribune arts critic
Published April 24, 2005


"Something has changed within me, something is not the same," sings the 'Wicked' girl with the pointy witch's hat, the magic powers and the pained, persistently green face. "I'm through with playing by the rules of someone's else's game."

Even on an ordinary Tuesday night, the atmosphere at New York's Gershwin Theatre resembles a rock concert -- crowds of screaming teenagers and their parents, a booming concession business, and hordes of people on the sidewalk all trying to talk their way into a sold-out Broadway show.

But anyone exploring the astonishing popular appeal of this quirky, messy prequel to "The Wizard of Oz" has to wait for this one monster song and the one killer moment that explains -- better than any other -- why the producers of "Wicked" have $31.5 million in advance sales in the bank. There's also a national tour beginning Friday in Chicago, a $10-million Chicago company waiting in the wings, and a slew of future plans for London, Australia and Japan.

The song "Defying Gravity," a hydraulically assisted, self-actualizing musical teenage thrust for the heavens, arrives right before intermission.

"Too late for second-guessing, Too late to go back to sleep," warbles the alienated teen who's about to grow up and become the Wicked Witch of the West.

Right on cue, Stephen Schwartz's pop-music score winds toward a melodic climax that can burrow deep inside even the most resistant skull. And the machinery that will send the green girl soaring toward the balcony slides into gear.

"It's time to trust my instincts," sings Elphaba, as the audience loudly revs itself up in anticipation, "close my eyes . . . and leap."

At that moment in the show, it feels like hundreds of teenagers are about to jump out of their seats in collective solidarity with the Wicked Witch of the West -- before the cruel world made her that way.

Suddenly, it seems, everyone is an unpopular girl with a green face.

Talk about a potent metaphor.

And that's mainly why "Wicked," which got mediocre reviews and lost the 2004 best musical Tony Award to a bunch of "Avenue Q" puppets, nonetheless became the Broadway mega-hit that critics and pundits utterly failed to anticipate.

The allure of `Wicked'

"I was in this kind of withdrawn period when I first heard `Defying Gravity,'" says Kevin Morris, a typical, 17-year-old "Wicked" lover -- and frequent presence on message boards devoted to the show --from St. Catharines, Ontario. "It brought out all these personal emotions in me. It's a song for anyone who ever has felt isolated."

The category of "anyone who ever has felt isolated" includes pretty much everyone.

Well, almost everyone.

[elphiefan]

the next bit (sorry, it won't let me post the whole thing in one post:

"In that little circle of New York tastemakers," says "Wicked" producer Marc Platt -- any bitterness now assuaged by his project's colossal subsequent success -- "it was very fashionable for a while not to like `Wicked.'"

So why did so few people think "Wicked" would become such a smash?

First, there was little in Gregory Maguire's initially slow-selling novel "Wicked" -- a complex, disturbing work that used the imagined early lives of the iconic characters from "The Wizard of Oz" to explore the nature of good and evil -- that suggested the likes of "Defying Gravity." Nor did it imply the show's shrewd evocation of the Harry Potter-like school attended by the two teenage witches.

Second, the show's themes of self-actualization are so familiar, they can feel like cliches. "Defying Gravity" owes obvious debts to "I Am What I Am" from "La Cage Aux Folles," Schwartz's "Corner of the Sky" (from "Pippin") and a slew of similar self-empowerment ballads warbled by such postmodern Disney heroines as Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" and the irrepressible Pocahontas.

Still, one person's cloying cliche is another's moving truth.

"Critics always dump on Schwartz," says Carol de Giere, who runs an independent Connecticut-based fan site celebrating "Wicked" and other Schwartz musical compositions. "That's because he writes upbeat, positive material."

Nothing irritates a Broadway producer more than someone trying to get him to say his show is only for one demographic. The typical modus operandi is to subtly market to particular groups but to profess in public that the show is for everyone and has been successful because it happens to be really, really good.

And, indeed, plenty of middle-age theatergoers have found their way to "Wicked" in New York and, no doubt, will do so in Chicago.

But still, the show's clear appeal for teenagers and young adults -- a highly desirable core audience because it never shuts up about what it likes and wants to bring all its scores of friends to share the experience -- is at the core of the show's success.

"Everyone needs to go through this experience of individuating from their parents and their culture," says de Giere. "Elphaba has this epiphany in the middle of the show. She may have to live in a way that's different from what she expected. But she has to live on her own."

"In a way, it's a girly show," says Christopher Kuczewski, the 22-year-old co-president of the "Wicked" fan club, "but anyone can relate to it. Anyone who ever has felt like they are different."

Kuczewski, who just graduated in theology from Fordham University, wrote his thesis on "Wicked." It was a 25-page theological interpretation of the show's Judeo-Christian themes.

"I get a lot of e-mails," says de Giere, "from people who say that `Wicked' gave them courage."

A phenomenon is born

The transformation of "Wicked" from cultish, quirky novel to teen-friendly popular hit did not happen by accident. The story starts with Platt, whose highly successful career as a movie producer has been built mainly on movies about alienated individuals such as Elphaba.

"I've long been attracted to characters who are outsiders," Platt says. "The movie `Philadelphia' was about an attorney-outsider. `Legally Blonde' was about a blond girl who's an outsider because she's not smart. Those films and `Wicked' may be different in tone and nature, but they tap into something that's in all of us."

From shortly after its publication, Platt had the rights to Maguire's 1995 novel and was trying to turn it into a movie -- an outsider movie, of course. Platt even had a screenplay on his desk. But it wasn't working. Platt knew that an audience would have to identify with characters -- which is tricky, when we are talking about two witches living in a fantasy kingdom that we know mainly through an old Judy Garland movie in which they were minor characters.

As with Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," the peripheral nature of those characters worked on Maguire's page. But Platt well knew it would not have engendered the necessary popular appeal, because popular appeal requires mass-identification. As it turned out, that was tough to pull off with a "Wicked" screenplay.

"I kept trying to get at the relationship between the two girls," Platt says, "but it required an enormous amount of inner dialogue. In a film, characters cannot easily say what they are feeling. But musicals allow you to musicalize that inner dialogue."

As it happened, Schwartz ("Godspell," "Pippin"), already had been hammering away at Platt to let him make a musical from the novel. Hamstrung by the problems with the screenplay, Platt finally agreed to do the thing as a live show.

And then Schwartz came up with a masterstroke -- he hired Winnie Holzman to write the book to the musical.

Ever since she wrote the short-lived, 1994-95 cult television show "My So-Called Life" (which starred Claire Danes) Holzman has been renowned for her ability to get inside the minds of teens -- especially girls -- who like to cast themselves as outsiders. In many ways, Holzman reconceived the Elphaba character as another incarnation of her most beloved character -- Angela Chase, as performed by Danes in a series that many teenage girls still watch on DVD.

Angela, of course, lacked the green skin and magic powers. But the two characters otherwise have a lot in common. Both are warm, vulnerable, sensitive and in the midst of adolescent angst and the long process of learning to have the courage to bang their own drums.

Holzman, of course, sees it a little differently.

"I get a little tired of people saying I write teenage girls so well," she says. "I try to write people. I don't have any special-interest groups."

Still, "Wicked" does revolve around two witches -- one popular, one not -- who happen to be teenagers for much of the show. Good witch Glinda, originally played by Kristin Chenoweth, is also an empathetic figure. Like her uglier sister, she's not entirely happy.

"Glinda knows her life is missing something," Holzman says.

In the end, neither girl can push away their questions about the nature of their identities. In other words, good-looking kids (or good-looking grown-up kids) can emphasize with Glinda -- the popular girl hurting inside. The geek or the Goth or the otherwise expelled from the mainstream can pull for Elphaba. Even the tweens -- one of the hottest marketing categories of the moment -- are well taken care of by "Wicked."

"Those girls," says de Giere of the show's two leading characters, "are just old enough that some in the audience can look up to them."

In Holzman's view, there's much more to it. She didn't set out to write the parts as vessels for mass-identification. Still, it's not exactly a coincidence.

"There are two young women on the stage in `Wicked,'" Holzman eventually allows. "They are playing parts that have complexity and depth. Maybe you don't see that every day."

Since Broadway currently is dominated by satire and pastiche, that's a true statement.

Completing the magic spell

[elphiefan]

last part of 1st article:

There is, of course, more to the success of "Wicked" than teenage identification. The show riffs on "The Wizard of Oz," a penned-in-Chicago work that's universally familiar. "People are excited to discover," de Giere says, "that their favorite characters could have a history."

Better yet, "The Wizard of Oz" has long been established as a repeatable cultural experience -- the movie and its myriad cultural spinoffs are watched and rewatched.

On Broadway, a desire for multiple viewings means box-office gold. And "Wicked" has it. People are willing to come back several times. "At intermission," Platt says. "We always see people headed to the box office to buy tickets."

Shrewdly, "Wicked" tells a prequel -- or a back story -- rather than a sequel. Audiences tend to resist sequels as somehow exploitational of the original film or novel. Similarly, musicals based directly on movies always risk being seen as rip-offs that are inferior to the original. "Wicked," which feels fresh and respectful of its hybrid source, shrewdly avoids both traps.

The last piece in the Broadway success story of "Wicked" is the complex persona of Idina Menzel (who won't be appearing in Chicago). Aside from being an actress with a huge voice, palpable vulnerability and uncommon intensity, she was already well known to fans of "Rent," another New York show that relied on youthful repeat business. Menzel also wasn't a conventional Broadway star -- or, at least, she was sold as an unconventional kind of Everywoman -- someone with whom one could relate, and a shrewd contrast to the conventionally cute Chenoweth.

In certain youthful circles, Menzel's presence established the cultish bonafides of "Wicked," right from the San Francisco tryout.

Ever since then, the producers of "Wicked" shrewdly have repeated one of the buzz-inducing "Rent" innovations -- holding back a small number of tickets and then releasing them through a daily lottery for $25 a ticket.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether Chicago audiences will embrace "Wicked" as intensely as people in New York. Early box-office sales have been strong -- the initial run is almost sold out, but there will be plenty of tickets available for later in the year (blocks on tickets go on sale a few weeks at a time).

Even with a blockbuster such as this, theater remains a local business. Most of the "Wicked" fans with the scores of online chat rooms and fan sites are clustered near New York and Toronto -- cities that already have seen the show.

When a group of teenagers at the Latin School of Chicago were asked about the show last month, the title provoked only vague recognition.

Come Friday, though, people will be able to see the show at Chicago's Oriental Theatre. Much hype will follow.

With past experience to back them up, the "Wicked" people are hoping that bulletin boards and word of mouth will light up the Midwestern sky -- and help empathetic Elphaba loosenthe gravitational pull of conformity for year after profitable year.

- - -

By the numbers . . .

Broadway budget of "Wicked": $14 million

National tour budget: $10 million

Chicago production budget: $10 million

Typical weekly gross on Broadway: $1.3 million

Likely weekly Chicago gross: $1.3 million

Broadway advance: $31.5 million

Anticipated worldwide gross of "Wicked": $150 million or more

[elphiefan]

And the Interview with Maguire:

Which is witch? 'Wicked' author on the book, show

By Julia Keller
Tribune cultural critic
Published April 24, 2005


The first sentence sparks a sinuous shiver: A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind's forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.

And thus readers are launched into "Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" (1995), Gregory Maguire's fetching, magical romp through an alternate Oz -- the one where the lime-hued hag nabs the spotlight.

Maguire, 50, a native of Albany, N.Y., wrote the novel upon which the hit musical is based. The show, which arrives in Chicago this week, helps keep the book selling briskly -- a fine thing, all told, because it's a lush, funny, keenly imagined novel of great narrative zest and moral profundity.

Maguire, who also wrote "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" (1999) and "Mirror, Mirror" (2003), along with many children's books, lives in the Boston area with his family. What follows is an edited transcript of a chat with him late last week.

Q. How many times have you seen the musical?

A. About a dozen. I saw it three times in the first three weeks.

Q. What's it like to see a musical based on your work?

A. It always shocks and startles me. To write a novel is effectively a cheaper kind of therapy than the $75-an-hour kind to work out your demons. Going into a theater and seeing people screaming at the iteration of a picture that was largely in your head before it was in someone else's head -- it's really strange.

But the first time I saw it was a nightmare. It's like having to do the trigonometry test naked in front of the pope, the president and the pizza guy. I wondered if I should have a bag over my head -- would anybody like it?

Q. Do you walk down the street humming the score?

A. [laughs] I did for a while. Mercifully, I have a family that says, "Enough already. Go back to `The Sound of Music.' Let's put on "Mamma Mia!" I do like the score. It surprised me.

Q. The prospect of a long-running version here in Chicago -- how does that strike you?

A. Chicago is a great place for a sit-down company of "Wicked." I lived in London for five years while I was writing the novel. It was written in a little coffee shop. When I was in Europe, I kind of forgot about Chicago. I came back for a book signing and we drove into the Loop -- and I suddenly felt taller. European capitals have nothing on Chicago.

Q. Why'd you go to England?

A. It was time to shake myself up a little.

Q. The novel, first published in 1994, has sold millions of copies. Did you expect that?

A. I thought it was possible. I didn't know it would happen the way it happened. I thought it would catch on immediately. But it didn't hit national best-seller lists the first six months. My agent said, "This book will find its little following." It caught on by word of mouth, slowly, over the first three years.

Q. Sounds a bit analogous to the musical -- that is, word of mouth made it a hit.

A. Yes, the audience didn't pay much attention to what the New York critics thought. The audience said, "I like this. I want to see this. And I want my best friend to see it too." It was an audience-made show.

Q. But you knew you had a good idea -- the back story of the Wicked Witch.

A. It was a good idea that was going to be OK even if the person who had the idea couldn't write or couldn't think. I knew that. I knew the book might be successful even if I wasn't a good writer.

Q. Do "Wizard of Oz" fans ever complain about your use of L. Frank Baum's characters?

A. I have long since been freed from the certain sniffy scorn of people who thought I was making fun of the material. "Wicked" is not in any way a parody of "The Wizard of Oz." It takes it all quite seriously. People have begun to realize that I'm not in the business of writing a skit for "The Carol Burnett Show."

"The Wizard of Oz" is a foundation myth of 20th Century culture. It's an iteration of Emerson. It's part of how Americans define themselves. Self help, self-reliance, responsibility.

Q. What are you working on now?

A. The sequel to "Wicked." It's very much born out of my response to American politics and my anxiety leading up to the recent [presidential] election -- and my disappointment at the results. That's the gas in my engine as I'm writing this book.

It's called "Son of a Witch" and it comes out Sept. 27, 2005 -- 10 years to the day after "Wicked." Most of it takes places 10 years from the end of "Wicked."

Q. You're interested in current events. So why write fantasy?

A. The alternative universe world, the created landscapes, are better able to reverberate and sustain an echo of the immediate moment in which they're written. And not age as fast.

Before World War II, for instance, fantasy writers were actually better at capturing the mood of the times than realist writers.

Q. Why do people read?

A. The better the book is, the more likely you are to meet yourself in its pages. The reader has a chance to recognize something real in every iteration of make-believe and falseness. There is a great balm and restoration quality in reading. We read in order to straighten our spine.

[elphiefan]

Hope that's helpful. ;D

[PhilosophChicken]

Thanks!

[elphiefan]

No problem.

[stars in the sky]

elphiefan said:

Hope that's helpful. ;D

Thanks so much for posting the articles! They're great

And I really like your icon, elphiefan!

[elphiefan]

stars said:

And I really like your icon, elphiefan!

Thanks. ;D The pixel characters were made by a guy on another board I visit and he gave me permission to make an avatar with them. They are very cute, aren't they?