Wicked national tour currently stops at Kalamazoo MI for only 2-weeks from April 24 through May 5.

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Jennifer DiNoia plays Elphaba in Wicked

Wicked main cast Jennifer DiNoia, who plays Elphaba, talks about green makeup, vocal rest and being awkward – Here is the interview:

Jennifer DiNoia remembers the first time she heard “Defying Gravity.”

“I always thought of myself as a dancer who could sing. At that moment, I heard ‘Defying Gravity’ and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is amazing. This role is the biggest, the best female role you could play,’” she said.

A decade later, DiNoia is portraying Elphaba all over the world, including when the tour stops at Kalamazoo’s Miller Auditorium from April 24 through May 5.

DiNoia is the one of several Elphabas to follow 2004 Tony Award-winner Idina Menzel’s portrayal. DiNoia said it’s a challenge to live up to Menzel.

“It gets a little difficult when people start writing things about you online, but I try to stay away from much of it as I can, because I don’t want to get into my head what people think. I want to stay true to who I am. Obviously, I’ve learned from other Elphabas, but I like to make it my own at the same time. I’m proud of that,” she said.

DiNoia has been with the production for seven years, she said. She’s played Elphaba in Broadway, Chicago, Australia and South Korea companies. This is her first turn playing Elphaba as the lead. This tour finds DiNoia paying especially close attention to her health, she said.

“I’m definitely super cautious about everything I do with my voice and everything. I’m drinking more tea and definitely trying to stay quiet when I’m not at the show, the vocal rest kind of thing. I’m trying to stay healthy and take my multi-vitamins,” she said.

Read the complete interview {via mLIVE.com}

Wicked will be in Kalamazoo, MI through May 5, 2013. Buy Wicked Miller Auditorium Tickets Online – Buy NOW and SAVE $10 on ALL ORDERS of $350+, Use code: TICK13

Wicked Musical will return to Kalamazoo MI next year April 2013. The Grammy Award and Tony Award winning musical set records when it came here at Miller Auditorium in 2010, and the venue expects a similar reaction to Broadway’s smash hit this time around. Next year Wicked performances at Miller Auditorium through May 05, 2013.

‘Wicked’ tickets for Miller Auditorium shows on sale in February 15, 2013

Wicked at Miller Auditorium – Apirl 24 to May 05, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 – 7:30 PM
Thursday, April 25 – 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM
Friday, April 26 – 8:00 PM
Saturday, April 27 – 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM
Sunday, April 28 – 1:00 PM and 6:30 PM
Tuesday, April 30 – 7:30 PM
Wednesday, May 1 – 7:30 PM
Thursday, May 2 – 7:30 PM
Friday, May 3 – 8:00 PM
Saturday, May 4 – 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM
Sunday, May 5 – 1:00 PM and 6:30 PM

“Before our sold out 2010 run had even closed, we already had patrons asking when ‘Wicked’ might return. It’s an honor to host such a high quality national tour and we can’t wait to experience ‘Wicked’ with our community again,” Marketing Director Tracey Lawie said in a press release.

Wicked musical performances at Miller Auditorium – Western Michigan University will continue through May 05, 2013. Buy Wicked Kalamazoo MI Tickets Online at discounted prices, Get $10 OFF on Orders of $350 or more by using code AFF$10.

Western Michigan University’s Miller Auditorium has announced its 2012-13 PNC Broadway in West Michigan Series lineup. Wicked Miller Auditorium performances start on April 24 and continue through May 5, 2013.

During the visit in 2010, Wicked Musical broke box office records and sold out in record time. The same flow of tickets to this show is expected next year as well in Kalamazoo, MI.

Long before that girl from Kansas was dropped into Munchkinland, two girls meet in the land of Oz. One, born with emerald-green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and popular. How these two grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good makes for what USA Today called “the most complete–and completely satisfying–new musical in a long time.” Winner of 35 major awards, including a Grammy and three Tony Awards, “Wicked” has been shattering box-office records around the globe.

Wicked musical two-week premiere engagement at Miller Auditorium closes on May 5, 2013. Buy Wicked Kalamazoo MI Tickets Get $10 OFF on Orders of $350 or more by using code #SpringSavings at Checkout.

Stephen Schwartz said he doesn’t know for certain why “Wicked,” for which he’s both composer and lyricist, has become such a long-running phenomenon. The musical, which opened on Broadway in 2003, will perform its magic Dec. 1-12 at Miller Auditorium.

Schwartz spoke about “Wicked” and his career while in Kalamazoo in August, when he also gave a talk at the Kalamazoo Civic Auditorium, ahead of its September performance of “Godspell,” and sneaked in a few matches at the U.S. Tennis Association Boys’ National Championship.

“I get these wonderful e-mails, especially from women going through difficult stages of their lives,” Schwartz said. The messages are from people who saw “Wicked,” often more than once, and found the musical “seems to speak to them.”

The song “Defying Gravity,” in particular, inspired them to confront their challenges and take action.

“Wicked,” a tale of two witches in Oz before Dorothy of Kansas showed up, is about the “difference between our perception of people and the reality,” Schwartz said. “So much today is blogs and things taken out of context, us versus them. Life is really not that simple.”

But basically “Wicked” is “the story of these two people.”

“It’s about the relationship between two friends, how another person can change your life,” he explained. “That’s a story not very often told in musical theater, and not so much with women.”

“As our leading producer, David Stone, says, ‘All of us has that green girl inside of us,’” Schwartz said.

What first attracted Schwartz, who studied piano and composition at the Juilliard School of Music and graduated in 1968 from Carnegie Mellon University with a B.F.A. in drama, to this story?

Choosing his projects, he admitted with a grin, often “is like falling in love” — a lot of it is chance. In the case of “Wicked,” he recalled he was on a snorkeling vacation in Hawaii when a friend mentioned she was reading Gregory Maguire’s novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.”

The coming year will be “very busy” for the composer. Fresh after being honored this summer by the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project for his mentorship of young tunesmiths, Schwartz has turned his attention to a Chicago revival of “Working” (1978), which will boast two new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda of the Tony Award-winning show “In the Heights,” and an opera.

Of his career thus far, he noted, “Even shows that I had trouble with at first” — “The Baker’s Wife,” “Children of Eden,” “Working,” for example — “they haven’t just gone away. People remained interested in them” and they continue to be produced.
“I’ve been very, very lucky.”

Wicked in Kalamazoo, MI
Miller Auditorium presents musical about the complicated and doomed friendship between the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.

When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1-2, 7-9; 8 p.m. Dec. 3-4, 10-11; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Dec. 5 and 12; 2 p.m. Dec. 2, 4 and 11

Where: Miller Auditorium, Western Michigan University

Buy Wicked Kalamazoo MI Tickets Online