Wicked musical tour currently stops in Boston MA through September 15, 2013.

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“Wicked!” and “Awesome!” – Reviewed by Chris Harding via Boston Neighborhood News.

The musical , which depicts an alternate history of the witches of Oz, has repeatedly broken box office records in Boston and around the world, having been seen by 37 million people (largely those of the female persuasion). You don’t need green spectacles to perceive that the young leads have greater vocal power and stage presence than many a better-known performer could muster.

At the heart of this prequel is the ever-changing friendship and rivalry between two women who meet at the Hogwartian Shiz University. Alison Luff plays the green-skinned, thin-skinned Elphaba, who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West while Jenn Gambatese portrays her blonde-headed, air-headed roomie, who becomes Glinda the Good.

The show was adapted from a best-seller of the same title written by part-time Concord, MA, resident Gregory Maguire. Librettist Winnie Holzman’s stage version is more light-hearted and conventionally romantic than Maguire’s somewhat grim and definitely adult take on the Frank L. Baum classic series. Creator of the lauded TV series “My So-Called Life,” she highlights “Seventeen”-ish issues like body images, dangerous boyfriends, school rivalries, self-esteem, and animal rights. However, Holzman doesn’t shy from the book’s existential reflections on how well-intentioned deeds can turn out to have evil effects.

So “Wicked” fronts up with more than enough spectacle and laughs to enchant the first-time viewer, but its haunting, tangled plot and intelligent lyrics just seem to grow richer and more intricate with each subsequent visit. So slip on your ruby red party shoes and head over to the Boston Opera House.

Read the complete review {Via Dotnews.com}

Broadway’s highest grossing show is running now through September 15 at the Boston Opera House. Watch the Awesome musical Wicked by owning Wicked Boston Tickets.

Wicked touring musical is currently playing in Boston MA through September 15, 2013.

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Touring musical is a ‘Wicked’ good show – Reviewed via HispanicBusiness.com.

A decade after opening on Broadway, “Wicked,” the musical back-story of “The Wizard of Oz,” is still vibrant and exciting, with absolutely gorgeous music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.

The touring production that opened this week at The Boston Opera House had some uneven singing, but better acting and dancing than in the two other touring shows I’ve seen.

Jenn Gambatese’s Glinda the Good is a terrific blend of a ditzy exterior and a genuinely nice person hidden within. The character is also hilarious. A Broadway veteran, Gambatese is comfortable on stage and well-versed in handling the musical demands of a show like “Wicked.” Her soprano is smooth and warm, bringing to life the opening number, “No One Mourns the Wicked,” as well as “Thank Goodness” and the widely sung, and very funny, “Popular.”

This is definitely a “Wicked” good production worth seeing, even if you’ve seen the musical before. But without a crystal ball to see Luff, the Elphaba regular, it’s hard to say if the chemistry will be as good as it was between Gambatese and Harris, and whether Luff’s singing as Elphaba will be even better.

Read the complete review {Via HispanicBusiness.com}

Wicked will perform through September 15, 2013 at Boston Opera House. Hurry to Book your Wicked Boston MA Tickets Online to experience the exciting, absolutely gorgeous musical.

Wicked musical is currently touring in Houston, TX Performing at Sarofim Hall Hobby Center (800 Bagby St, Houston, Texas 77002) through August 11, 2013.

Buy Wicked Houston Texas Tickets Online!

Wicked Shines When Glinda the Good Witch is on Stage – reviewed by D.L. Groover.

The set-up:
With all the aerial modes of transportation on display in Stephen Schwartz’s (and book writer Winnie Holtzman’s) megahit musical Wicked – winged monkeys, broomstick, tornado, fairground balloon, and bubble – you’d think this theatrical juggernaut from 2003, the fourth incarnation to visit Houston via Gexa on Broadway, would have learned how to fly.

The execution:
Based very loosely upon Gregory Maguire’s adult “prequel” to L. Frank Baum’s classic series of children’s books, this Broadway adaptation owes whatever magic it possesses to the long-ago, golden age wizards of MGM. Wicked’s creators should be on their knees in thanks, because without the cinematic references to characters, costume and set design, even lines of dialogue, this show would be nowhere.

The verdict:
The show, immensely popular and still selling out on Broadway as well as in every city it tours, is impervious to criticism. Ten years down the road, it has lost none of its power to beguile and will probably be around fifty years from now packing the house. This is family entertainment with a vengeance, and it’s heartening to see young ones in the audience so thrilled by live theater. But I think they marvel at the quantity, not the quality.

Read the complete review Via {Houston Press}

Last few chances left to see Wicked as the Tour will end in Houston Texas on August 11, 2013. Buy Wicked Sarofim Hall Hobby Center Tickets Online!

Wicked musical tour is currently playing at Sarofim Hall Hobby Center from July 10 through August 11, 2013.

Buy Wicked Houston Texas Tickets Online!

Where: Sarofim Hall Hobby Center, 800 Bagby St
Schedule:
Tuesdays to Thursdays – 7:30 PM
Fridays – 8:00 PM
Saturdays – 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM
Sundays – 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM

Wicked soars again in its fourth visit to Houston – reviewed by Everett Evans.

The alchemy that makes a hit musical is as weird and inexplicable as a witch’s spell – as the touring “Wicked” demonstrates yet again in the Broadway blockbuster’s fourth visit to Houston.

Based on Gregory Maguire’s novel telling the back story of the good and bad witches of Oz, “Wicked” soars despite unevenness in Winnie Holzman’s book and Stephen Schwartz’s score – both with fine moments, yet overall, more serviceable than inspired. “Wicked” lands a phenomenal punch anyway, because the premise is so irresistible and every other key element of the show, from direction to design to performance, is just about ideal.

As always, the first thing you notice is Eugene Lee’s elaborate scenic design: a proscenium of gadgets and gizmos, framing the show curtain depicting the map of Oz, topped by the Time Dragon, a huge puppet whose eyes glow red as it breathes fire and flaps its enormous wings. That’s the tip-off that “Wicked” is the real deal, a grand-scale, fully appointed Broadway musical – a rare breed these days, whether in New York or on the road.

Once the curtain rises, the rest of Lee’s settings, Susan Hilferty’s wildly imaginative costumes and Kenneth Posner’s magical lighting combine to conjure an extravagant vision, fantasyland with quirky twists – after all, Oz always had a freakish streak. Joe Mantello’s fluid and inventive direction melds all the design elements and the company into vivid stage pictures. With eclectic choreographic embellishment by Wayne Cilento, Mantello generates narrative momentum, with increasing attention to the more dramatic aspects as it advances.

David Nathan Perlow plays callow Fiyero with charm and sings agreeably. Kathy Fitzgerald makes a properly imperious, then sinister Madame Morrible. Walker Jones’ Wizard is a genial albeit low-key charlatan. Jenny Fellner and Alex Wyse do nicely with the subplot of lovelorn Nessarose and Boq, her ill-fated swain.

Perhaps inevitably, “Wicked” impresses much as before. You can’t keep a good, or wicked, witch down.

Read the complete review Via {Chron.com}

Only few chances left to see Wicked at Sarofim Hall Hobby Center. Buy Wicked Houston Texas Tickets Online!

Wicked Musical currently touring in Costa Mesa CA for almost 4-week run through March 17, 2013. The Wizard of Oz has returned to the Segerstrom Center for the third time and reviewed by ANNE VALDESPINO – Here is the review:

Now a decade old, “Wicked” continues to set records for ticket sales and it still attracts an eclectic audience: little girls in ruby red dresses, punks with platinum hair, fresh-faced young women dragging their boyfriends, seniors and gay couples. Its soaring score, fantasy landscape, love story and a book packed with one-liners appeal to a wide demographic.

It’s no surprise that composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, with his love of challenging subjects, could craft a musical out of Gregory Maguire’s best-selling 1995 novel. “Wicked” bristles with great music, from its foreboding title track, “No One Mourns the Wicked,” to songs of young love awakening such as “I’m Not That Girl,” and plenty of anthemic ballads in between: “Defying Gravity” and “The Wizard and I.”

Schwartz is suddenly hot again – or perhaps he’s never gone cold. “Pippin” is poised for a spring Broadway revival, and “Wicked” is just more candy for his hard-core fans. The composer of “Godspell” and Disney musicals including “Enchanted,” “Pocahontas,” and “The Prince of Egypt,” Schwartz is a master of pulling on heartstrings.

“Wicked” is about the odd friendship of two girls, one blond and popular, the other a green witch with strange powers. Thrown together accidentally, they experience the typical phases of teen relationships: first dances, bonding over clothes and hairstyles, fighting over the cutest boy in the school. Add politics, sorcery, betrayal and murder to the mix.

Continually taunted for her green skin, Elphaba attends school only to care for her wheelchair-bound sister Nessarose, and meets her opposite, Glinda, the girl with the golden hair. At first they tangle, then become roomies and best friends. Handsome prince Fiyero tests their loyalties by first falling for Glinda and then taking up Elphaba’s political cause: her championing of animal rights, which lands her in deep trouble at school and with the Wizard. Meanwhile, Nessarose has her heart set on Boq, a Munchkin who only has eyes for Glinda.

Read the complete review {Via OCRegister.com}

Wicked musical will play through March 17, 2013 at Orange County Performing Arts Center – Segerstrom Hall. Buy Wicked Costa Mesa CA Tickets Online – SAVE $10 when you spend $350 or more, Use code AFF$10.

Wicked Musical currently Stops in San Francisco CA for almost 4-week run. Wicked will be performing at Orpheum Theater SF through February 17, 2013. Wicked musical play at Orpheum Theater reviewed by Robert Hurwitt – Here is the review:

Elphaba, the green girl, flies high and sings with beautifully modulated power as she becomes the Wicked Witch of the West in the touring production of “Wicked” that opened Thursday at the Orpheum Theatre. Glinda the Good matches her vocally and dazzles the audience with charm. And that may be the bigger story.

Understudy Cassie Okenka rose from the ensemble to don Glinda’s blond locks, pink frocks and sunnily self-absorbed personality when co-star Patti Murin was sidelined with the flu Thursday. From her glittering first notes through every step of an assured performance, Okenka more than gave the audience its money’s worth at the latest show in SHN’s season.

It was another nice turn in San Francisco’s long relationship with composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz and librettist Winnie Holzman’s adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s dystopian “Oz” prequel. The show had its world premier here in 2003, before going on to become one of Broadway’s hottest tickets, and returned for a prolonged run in ’09.

It’s very much the same, well-oiled production as last time, staged with quick-paced clarity by Joe Mantello and inventively boisterous dance by Wayne Cilento. The great smoke-breathing mechanical dragon looms above the massive gears and clockworks of Eugene Lee’s Victorian steam-punk set. The cast creates sharp individual portraits in Susan Hilferty’s scruffy peasant, odd animal and glittering Emerald City costumes.

The heart of “Wicked” is the story of Elphaba and Glinda, accidental roommates and rivals in wizardry and romance at Shiz University. Dee Roscioli shines as the shy but assertive, sharp-tongued green girl, the eternal outsider blessed – and cursed – with magical powers she’s only learning to use.

Though she’s played Elphaba more often than anyone else, Roscioli keeps the role fresh and immediate, whether navigating her uneasy growing closeness with Glinda or confronting the villainies of Kim Zimmer’s outrageously formidable Madame Morrible and the vaudevillian con-man Wizard of Kevin McMahon (also filling in for an ailing regular).

Read the complete review {Via SFGate.com}

Wicked musical will play through February 17, 2013 at Orpheum Theater, 1192 Market St., S.F. Buy Wicked San Francisco CA Tickets Online – SAVE $10 when you spend $350 or more, Use code AFF$10.

Wicked Musical currently Stops in Honolulu HI for almost 7-week run. Wicked will be performing at Neal S. Blaisdell Center Concert Hall through January 12, 2013. Wicked musical play at Neal S. Blaisdell Center – Concert Hall reviewed by RUTH BINGHAM as ““Wicked” works magic”. Here is the review:

“Wicked” the musical is a better, tighter story than Gregory Maguire’s novel, which composer Stephen Schwartz and author Winnie Holzman rewrote so that it works on multiple levels.

In the novel, the story is launched by a hurdy-gurdy man’s mechanical “razzle-dazzle spectacle” that comes to town to lead good citizens astray: “Wicked” the musical is that spectacle. We, the good citizens of Honolulu, assemble to see the novelty, a trained money cranks open the curtain, the mechanical Clock of the Time Dragon roars, and the fantasy begins.

The musical takes place wholly within the book’s Clock of the Time Dragon; it begins as a “once-upon-a-time” flashback from a point we thought we knew, but ends by sending us back into our world without returning to the starting point so that we carry the story with us as we leave.

On reflection, “Wicked” is a dark tale, on one level a morality play about good and evil, but it is told with humor and a happy Hollywood ending, making it suitable and enchanting for audiences of all ages. Part of its magic is that people experience the tale differently and walk away with different lessons, so no spoilers here — you have to experience it for yourself.

That said, “Wicked” will be the shortest three hours you’ve ever spent in a theater — it covers a lot of ground during that time. Like its structural forefather, Baz Luhrman’s “Moulin Rouge,” almost every line is a reference, and every twist and turn of its very dense plot is delivered in only a phrase or two, making every word essential.

“Wicked’s” pit orchestra — 15 musicians, nine hired locally — provide an almost subconscious flow, carrying the drama along. The production is at such a high level overall that when minor issues with balancing sound intruded during a performance last weekend, they fortunately passed quickly.

Read the complete review {Via HonoluluPulse.com}

Wicked musical will be in Honolulu HI through January 12, 2013. Buy Wicked Neal S. Blaisdell Center – Concert Hall Tickets Online – SAVE $10 when you spend $350 or more, Use code AFF$10.

Wicked Musical is currently performing at The Fabulous Fox Theatre – St. Louis, MO. Based on the novel by Gregory Macguire, “Wicked” is the back story of “The Wizard of Oz.” Wicked musical play at The Fabulous Fox Theatre reviewed by Andrea Braun. Here is the review:

The story begins with the birth of a bright green infant named Elphaba conceived in a one-night stand in which her apparently slutty mom slept with a man addicted to a colored substance he shared with her. So, okay, we don’t start out with a woman being anything but a stereotype. As it happens, said woman is married to the Governor of Munchkinland (only he’s not short) whom she does not love. Still, they conceive another daughter, Nessarose, who is born early and damaged from the plant her husband forces upon the mom to ensure the child is not green. Well, she’s not, but she’s premature and has underdeveloped legs, and her mother dies, leaving Elphaba with only a green bottle to remember her by.

We next see the sisters when their father drops them off at Shiz, a tony prep school for well-to-do children of powerful Ozians (Oz is an area divided into several different lands but all are under the control of the “Wonderful Wizard” of Oz.) Elphaba is only sent to be a guardian to daddy’s darling wheelchair-bound Nessa, but she displays her extraordinary powers early (she’s like The Hulk: You really don’t want to make her angry AND she’s green). The headmistress, Madame Morrible, selects her for special training, a privilege the wealthy and spoiled Galinda assumed would be hers. Instead, the vapid blonde and the smart green girl end up roommates who move from “loathing” (“What Is This Feeling”) to BFFs fairly quickly (in musical terms, within two songs before“Popular”).

Gregory Maguire’s novel, Wicked, tells the story of the “Wicked Witch of the West” before Dorothy blew into town, but the musical is quite different from its source material. Stephen Schwartz (music and lyrics) and Winnie Holzman (book) have created an entirely sympathetic Elphaba, a finally admirable Glinda (after she realizes her happiness is not the entire world’s responsibility), and others who are good—Fiyero, beloved of both Elphaba and Glinda, and Boq, a virtual slave to the nasty Nessa—or bad—Morrible, the Wizard. A talented singing and dancing chorus functions as Shiz students, citizens of Oz, palace guards, and those famous flying monkeys. It is a lovely looking show, leaning toward gears and a big clock and stylized costumes. It’s essentially really elaborate Steampunk.

Read the complete review {Via PLAYBACKstl.com}

Wicked will be in Saint Louis MO through January 6, 2013. Buy Wicked The Fabulous Fox Theatre Tickets Online – SAVE $10 when you spend $350+, Use code AFF$10.

Wicked Musical is currently performing at Fabulous Fox Theatre-St. Louis, MO. Based on the novel by Gregory Macguire, “Wicked” is the back story of “The Wizard of Oz.” Harry Hamm reviewed the musical at stlouis.cbslocal.com. Here is the review:

From every production value you can imagine, and some you probably couldn’t until you see the show, “Wicked” is a masterwork of staging and creativity. It is the kind of production that challenges itself on every level and succeeds brilliantly. Casting is always a strong point of this production and in this visit, it is exceptional as well. Christine Dwyer as Elphaba carries the role with a wonderful voice and strident, authentic strength of character.

Jeanna de Waal as Glinda is sweet, funny and full of feeling when it is needed. The performance chemistry between she and Dwyer is genuinely winning.

Supporting and ensemble casts member are all outstanding, especially Jay Russell as Dr. Dillamond, Billy Harrigan as Fiyero and Paul Kreppel as The Wizard.

“Wicked” is a musical that is moving, amusing, exciting, funny and heartfelt. Subtexts abound. There are so many elements that can relate to almost any audience member about instances in their own stories that in many ways “Wicked” becomes a reaffirmation of life. And by the way, the 14 piece orchestra, under the baton of Valerie Gebert, and including 9 local musicians, makes the music soar. “Wicked” will be on stage at The Fabulous Fox Theatre through January 6.

Read the complete review {Via stlouis.cbslocal.com}

Wicked will be at Fox Theatre through January 6, 2013. Buy Wicked Saint Louis MO Tickets Online at discounted prices – SAVE $10 when you spend $350+, Use code AFF$10.

Broadway’s biggest blockbuster “Wicked” is playing the second time at Proctors Theatre, Schenectady NY. Wicked will be at Proctors Theatre through November 25, 2012. Bob Goepfert reviewed the musical at Saratogian.com. Here is the review:

Wicked musical is just as good and, arguably, even better, than the first, which is a great tribute to the production.

That’s because “Wicked” is a show in which the storyline is more important than its musical component. If you are not involved in the story, you might find the material too dense.

Yes, the score is pleasant enough to be enjoyed alone and, when special effects are added to the first-act closer “Defying Gravity,” it’s a goose bump moment. But songs like the love duet “As Long As You Are Mine” and the ode to friendship “For Good,” while lovely, take on an added resonance because of our attachment to the characters and the situation of which they are singing

The biggest hurdle for audiences who saw the first “Wicked” at Proctors is familiarity with the plot. “Wicked” turns the traditional “Wizard of Oz” tale on its heels, as most of the fun comes from the revelations about how the Wicked Witch of the East and Glinda, the Good Witch, got their reputations.

That said, the talented cast captures the essence of the story and develops the friendships and romances between the characters while keeping the balance between comedy and intense drama. This production is always engaging.

The two leads are terrific. The central figure is Elphaba, the girl who was born with skin an odd shade of green which made her an outsider. Christine Dwyer plays the woman who becomes the Wicked Witch of the East as an outspoken, independent woman, but also indicates her need for acceptance.

Almost stealing the show from Elphaba is Glinda, who is portrayed in a delightfully comic manner by Jeanna De Waal. De Waal’s Glinda grows from being a self-centered, dumb blonde to become an emerging independent woman with a world view.

In many ways, Glinda’s journey is more satisfying than is Elphaba’s. That’s because Elphaba’s destiny is almost preordained while Glinda’s growth comes from increasing self-awareness.

Read the complete review {Via Saratogian.com}

Wicked will be at Proctors Theatre through November 25, 2012. Buy Wicked Schenectady NY Tickets Online at discounted prices – Save $10 on Orders of $350 or more, Use code AFF$10.