{"id":830,"date":"2010-11-28T19:26:43","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T02:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/?p=830"},"modified":"2010-11-28T19:26:43","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T02:26:43","slug":"stephen-schwartz-composer-says-wicked-is-about-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/stephen-schwartz-composer-says-wicked-is-about-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Schwartz, Composer says ‘Wicked’ is about relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Schwartz said he doesn\u2019t know for certain why \u201cWicked,\u201d for which he\u2019s 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<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Schwartz spoke about \u201cWicked\u201d 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 \u201cGodspell,\u201d and sneaked in a few matches at the U.S. Tennis Association Boys\u2019 National Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get these wonderful e-mails, especially from women going through difficult stages of their lives,\u201d Schwartz said. The messages are from people who saw \u201cWicked,\u201d often more than once, and found the musical \u201cseems to speak to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The song \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d in particular, inspired them to confront their challenges and take action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWicked,\u201d a tale of two witches in Oz before Dorothy of Kansas showed up, is about the \u201cdifference between our perception of people and the reality,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cSo much today is blogs and things taken out of context, us versus them. Life is really not that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

But basically \u201cWicked\u201d is \u201cthe story of these two people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about the relationship between two friends, how another person can change your life,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat\u2019s a story not very often told in musical theater, and not so much with women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs our leading producer, David Stone, says, \u2018All of us has that green girl inside of us,\u2019\u201d Schwartz said.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

Choosing his projects, he admitted with a grin, often \u201cis like falling in love\u201d \u2014 a lot of it is chance. In the case of \u201cWicked,\u201d he recalled he was on a snorkeling vacation in Hawaii when a friend mentioned she was reading Gregory Maguire\u2019s novel \u201cWicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coming year will be \u201cvery busy\u201d 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 \u201cWorking\u201d (1978), which will boast two new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda of the Tony Award-winning show \u201cIn the Heights,\u201d and an opera. <\/p>\n

Of his career thus far, he noted, \u201cEven shows that I had trouble with at first\u201d \u2014 \u201cThe Baker\u2019s Wife,\u201d \u201cChildren of Eden,\u201d \u201cWorking,\u201d for example \u2014 \u201cthey haven\u2019t just gone away. People remained interested in them\u201d and they continue to be produced.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been very, very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wicked in Kalamazoo, MI<\/a>
\nMiller Auditorium presents musical about the complicated and doomed friendship between the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Where: Miller Auditorium, Western Michigan University<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy Wicked Kalamazoo MI Tickets Online<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Schwartz said he doesn\u2019t know for certain why \u201cWicked,\u201d for which he\u2019s 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 \u201cWicked\u201d and his career while in Kalamazoo in August, when he also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[270,337,272,335,164],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions\/831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickedthemusicalticketsonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}