“Wicked’s” former Elphabaa, Kerry Ellis, will turn in her green ensemble for one as Nancy in Cameron Mackintosh’s “Oliver!” in the West End. The actress, who is most well known for playing the Wicked Witch of the West, will step into the new role by the end of March, 2010. The show was the focus of BBC1’s “I’d Do Anything” in 2008, reports The Drama Student, and was judged by the infamous play write Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

In other “Wicked” news, as reported yesterday the musical pre-quel for the Frank L. Baum story “The Wizard of Oz” grossed over $2 million when it performed on Broadway. To put things into perspective, writes Wallet Pop, Oprah’s Book Club story “The Road” only grossed $1.5 million nationwide over the Thanksgiving weekend and the new Sony film “Planet 51″ picked up $1.8 million. The stage show, which only had eight performances and one stage (in comparison to 111 cinemas for “The Road” and 3,000 for “Planet 51″) picked up more than $2 million.

Nonetheless, this is an event to save up for, as millions of fans have been praising the show’s magical story for years.

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PERFORMANCES BEGIN WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9 AT PROCTORS

A day-of-performance lottery for a limited number of orchestra seats will be held daily for WICKED, which will be performing from December 9 – January 3 at Proctors. Each day, 2½ hours prior to show time people who present themselves at the Proctors box office will have their names placed in a lottery drum and then thirty minutes later, names will be drawn for a limited number of orchestra seats at $25 each, cash only. This lottery is available only in-person at the box office, with a limit of two tickets per person.

WICKED is a new musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, Disney’s Enchanted, Academy Award winner for Pocahontas and The Prince of Egypt) and book by Winnie Holzman (“My So Called Life,” “Once And Again” and “thirtysomething”) based on the 1995 best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire. The musical is directed by two-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Take Me Out, Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Vagina Monologues, 9 to 5) and features musical staging by Tony Award winner Wayne Cilento (Aida, The Who’s Tommy, How To Succeed…). WICKED, the untold story of the witches of Oz, is produced by Marc Platt, Universal Pictures, The Araca Group, Jon B. Platt and David Stone.

Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the land of Oz. One – born with emerald green skin – is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. WICKED tells the story of their remarkable odyssey, how these two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.

WICKED features set design by Tony Award winning Eugene Lee (Ragtime, Show Boat, Candide, Sweeney Todd), costume design by Tony winner Susan Hilferty (Spring Awakening, Into the Woods, Assassins), lighting design by Tony nominee Kenneth Posner (Tony Award winner for The Coast of Utopia, Hairspray) and sound design by Tony Meola (The Lion King, Man of La Mancha). Stephen Oremus is the show’s music director. Orchestrations are by William David Brohn, with dance arrangements by James Lynn Abbott.

WICKED has “cast quite a spell” (Washington Post) throughout North America, breaking box office records in every city that it has played, including Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Boston to name a few.

Called “one of the most successful shows in Broadway history” by The New York Times and “a phenomenon that keeps growing” by the Los Angeles Times, WICKED continues to thrill audiences around the world. There are currently eight productions of WICKED worldwide, including two North American tours, a Broadway production, San Francisco production, London production, a Japanese-language production, a German-language production and Australian production. A Dutch-language production of WICKED will open in 2011.

The official performance schedule for Wicked will be as follows:
Wednesday, December 9 at 8pm
Thursday, December 10 at 2pm & 8pm
Friday, December 11 at 8pm
Saturday, December 12 at 2pm & 8pm
Sunday, December 13 at 2pm & 7:30pm
Tuesday, December 15 at 8pm
Wednesday, December 16 at 8pm
Thursday, December 17 at 8pm
Friday, December 18 at 8pm
Saturday, December 19 at 2pm & 8pm
Sunday, December 20 at 2pm & 7:30pm
Monday, December 21 at 8pm
Tuesday, December 22 at 8pm
Wednesday, December 23 at 2pm & 8pm
Saturday, December 26 at 2pm & 8pm
Sunday, December 27 at 2pm & 7:30pm
Monday, December 28 at 8pm
Tuesday, December 29 at 8 pm
Wednesday, December 30 at 2pm & 8pm
Saturday, January 2 at 2pm & 8pm
Sunday, January 3 at 2pm & 7:30pm

Please note the special performance schedule. There are no performances on December 25, 31 or January 1 due to the holidays.

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The North American touring company of Wicked will present an evening of rock ‘n’ roll music to benefit the Brian Werbel Memorial Fund.

Entitled Wicked Rocks, the 7 PM concert on Dec. 7 will be held at the Hanna Theatre at PlayhouseSquare in Cleveland, OH. Currently scheduled to perform are Richard H. Blake (Fiyero), Ben Liebert (Boq), Merideth Kaye Clark (Elphaba Standby) and Randy Danson (Madame Morrible) as well as members of the ensemble and the touring staff. Richard Kline (The Wizard) and Chandra Lee Schwartz (Glinda) will host.
Concertgoers can expect to hear tunes made famous by The Beatles, Queen, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Who and Tina Turner.

The evening will also include live and silent auctions.

Wicked is playing at the State Theatre at PlayhouseSquare through Dec. 13.

Admission to Wicked Rocks is by donation. Tickets are available in person at the PlayhouseSquare Ticket Office, by calling , or online at PlayhouseSquare.org.
*
The Brian Werbel Memorial Fund was established in 2007 to honor the memory of Brian, who passed away at the age of 29. The mission of the fund is to “advance research on cancer-related initiatives, an area Brian was deeply involved in.”

Albany native and author of the award winning novel “Wicked” – Gregory McGuire – will be presenting a free program on December 9th at the Schenectady library. The McChesney Room at Schenectady Country Public Library (99 Clinton Street) will host the famed author, who wrote among many other things the “Wicked” series, the first of which was brought to Broadway at 3:30pm next week. The story follows the Wicked Witch of the West and her boarding school roommate, Glinda the Good Witch as they grow up to become the well known women captured in the film “Wizard of Oz.” That same day Proctors will open it’s doors to the story turned to life when the theater hosts the national tour of “Wicked.”

Along with a special basket that includes two tickets to the play among other things that will be given away, Janet Hutchinson of the Open Door Bookstore will be handling the pre-sale of several Gregory Maguire titles; available to all SCPL libraries, the Open Door, the Whitney Book Corner and online (www.scpl.org), the first 25 people to order will get a free Maguire book, in addition to being entered into the chance to have Maguire himself sign the book.

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According to Variety, Wicked has become the “first Broadway production to report sales of more than $2 million for a single frame on the board,” otherwise known as Wicked has become the only Broadway show to report figures over $2 million in just one week of sales. The figure came about Thursday’s week (ending Sunday, November 29) when the total figure rounded out to be about $2,086,135, a number that updated the past Rialto score that was recorded during the 2007 sessions and was marked at $1.84 million.

The six year show has astounded audiences with its national tours, Broadway staple and international performances. The show is bound to see more money once the holiday months arrive. Other shows that have fared well even in this economic downturn are The Lion King ($1,693,074), Billy Elliot ($1574,502), Mary Poppins (($1,068,271) and “Shrek the Musical” ($1,025,635), the first two both breaking their own records.

The Broadway company has picked up 26 awards in its six years, including a Grammy and three Tony Awards. The company on Broadway currently stars Dee Roscioli as Elphaba, Erin Mackey as Glinda, Kevin Kern as Fiyero, Rondi Reed as Madame Morrible, P.J. Benjamin as The Wizard, Alex Brightman as Boq, Michelle Federer as Nessarose and Timothy Britten Parker as Dr. Dillamond.

Don’t Miss the chances of watching the great Musical Show Wicked. Hurry up for Wicked Tickets.

WICKED is currently playing on tour in Kansas City, MO and Cleveland, OH.

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