Wicked is currently playing at Majestic Theatre in San Antonio TX and performing through March 06, 2011.
When Anne Brummel walks out of her dressing room, her flesh turned emerald green to play the lead in “Wicked,” she feels pretty darn good.
Anne Brummel Defies Gravity as Elphaba in Wicked
“Basically, the makeup goes on and creates her skin, and on top of that, they do a beautiful makeup job,” Brummel said. “Your face is contoured, your eyes pop because of the makeup they do on your eyes. It’s a beautiful application of makeup, so you feel very pretty. Leaving the dressing room, I’m pretty hot for a green girl.
“Sometimes, I think I look 10 times prettier green than I do normally.”
For her character, that green skin is a burden that makes life difficult. Her parents freak out about it, and she’s an outcast long before she takes on the accoutrements — that peaked black hat, the broom, the flying monkeys — that make her identifiable as the Wicked Witch of the West.
The events that helped set her on that path are traced in the musical, which is adapted from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel. This week, the show began its second visit to the Majestic Theatre, where it played for nearly a month in 2009.
Brummel just took over the role full time a few weeks ago. She has been with the tour a little more than two years, starting in the ensemble and eventually becoming the understudy for Elphaba (aka the Wicked Witch of the West, which is where the show gets its title).
She has avoided reading the book, because, she said, because she knew that Maguire’s story is pretty different from the one spun onstage.
“I didn’t want my interpretation to be changed by the novel,” she said. “Now that I’ve settled into the role, I’m very eager to read the book, now that I have what I perceive as the character. Now I think I’d be able to read it and enjoy it for the book that it is.”
Her favorite moments in the show are the biggies: “There’s the iconic ‘Defying Gravity’ — you can’t help but feel like a rock star by the end of that. The only thing that’s strange is, you don’t have any room to move around — you’re singing this huge song with very little space to move.”
She’s also fond of “No Good Deed,” “when Elphaba says, everything I do is misinterpreted and misunderstood; if you want me to be wicked, I will be wicked. It’s her last battle cry. I feel like that’s a great moment — you’ve got the wind behind your cape, and there’s smoke.”
{Via MySanantonio.com}
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