sooooo Wicked..............................

No not me! Ok, well........sometimes. ;)

Sorry for the delay in writing! I wanted to write about Friday night festivities on Saturday but totally ran out of time.

Last year my mom and brother and I went to see Wicked and when we heard it was coming back this winter, my brother began a campaign to my mother resulting in her purchasing tickets for him and I for xmas.

Here is a synopsis of the show:

The musical is based off of the book written by Gregory Maguire . I've never read it only seen the show, but if it is anything like the musical I'm sure it is great. The story focuses on Elphaba (Wicked Witch of the West) and Glinda (the Good Witch) and how the two met. The beginning of the musical takes places prior to the story of The Wizard of Oz. Then about halfway through the musical the events in the movie start to appear subtly. The only characters that aren't explicitly shown are Dorothy and Toto although they are referred to subtly.

As the story unfolds you learn about Elphaba and her story. There are alot of themes that are relevant in today's current political atmosphere, as Elphaba is deemed 'wicked' because people always need someone to blame things on and be afraid of. Fear is what gives those in power the ability to continue there power and create a diversion so people do see what is really going on. As Ephaba's powers are revealed, those in power attempt to manipulate her and Glinda to use their magical powers to control Oz and Munchkin Land. But Elphaba isn't having it and she is faced with a decision to follow what she believes in and lose an opportunity that she has dreamed of for her entire life or quietly do as she is told.


We first went out to dinner at the Chophouse. I have to tell you guys, my brother was so adorable. He was so excited for the show and so excited to go to dinner downtown. Since he is in high school there isn't any real reason for him to be in the warehouse district, especially on a Friday night. For him it was a night in the big city! I don't think he stopped smiling at all the whole night. :)

Dinner at the Chophouse was of course wonderful. As usual, I ate my salad and a couple small wedges of their cornbread (which is waaaaay too good) and when dinner arrived I could only eat a few bites and was stuffed. I tried REALLY REALLY hard to eat more but I had eaten too much of others things. So I basically watched Steve eat and then we headed over to the theater.

He was also excited because my mom had purchased upper box seats and he hasn't had the opportunity to sit there before. As we were ushered to our seats he kept looking at me with "this is the coolest ever!!!" expression. The upper boxes aren't used at all shows because of how much of the sets and the sound equipment has grown over time. For example, at the Lion King, the boxes where occupied by soundguys and instruments. So as we climbed the old narrow staircase his excitement grew.

Having already seen the show once before we both have our favorite parts. I love the Emerald City costumes the most and my favorite songs are "Popular," "Defying Gravity" and "For Good." Steve's favorite songs are "Defying Gravity" and "As Long as You're Mine."

The house was packed as it was sold out. The resulting energy was incredible and you could feel everyone's excitement. The show was amazing of course and we had great seats to see everything. It is a fast paced show with wonderfully amazing costumes and sets. The score is also quite well done. I mean this has won several Tony and Grammy awards, hello!. ;)

We took some pictures at dinner and then in the theater and of the stage. So I put together a flash video of those pics and a couple from the Wicked website. I wanted to include the entire song, "Defying Gravity" so I grabbed photos from other websites to fill the time. If you have the chance to go, do it! It is a really cleverly done show, the characters are great and well played! Enjoy!


NOTE: I used Camtasia to create the flash file. I have pasted all sources for pics in a comment to the post.