About the Show

This all-ages musical spectacle tells the untold true story of the Witches of Oz.

Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, Wicked looks at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle. Long before Dorothy crash lands her house in Oz, there is another young woman, Elphaba, born with emerald-green skin—smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly and popular blonde, Glinda, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships…until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked.”

The score by Stephen Schwartz ('Godspell,' 'Pippin,' 'The Prince of Egypt') includes the songs 'Defying Gravity,' 'Popular,' and 'The Wizard and I.'

'Wicked' opened in 2003 and in 2019 became the fifth-longest-running show in Broadway history.

Critic Reviews (24)

"In retrospect, Wicked seems an early sign of the cultural clout which is to say buying power of a generation of girls (and now women) whose desire to see, read, and sing along with stories about female empowerment has become a snowballing trend."
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"A musical prequel to The Wizard of Oz, that explained how the Wicked Witch of the West got that way, and explored her true relationship to Glinda the Good Witch. A combination of outstanding elements."
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"Two of the producers of the musical Wicked bear the name Platt, which (in German) means flat, and one the name Stone, which (in English) means heavy. Why not also one called Long, although it is too much to ask for one called Boring, all of which apply to the show."
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"The best moments in 'Wicked' come when the stage is least crowded. I'm done niggling. 'Wicked' is funny and touching and full of beans (not to mention child-friendly). It'll make a great movie one of these days, and it's going to make Kristin Chenoweth a star right this minute. Go."
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"Nothing in Oz, you see, happened the way Judy Garland thought it did. In 'Wicked', the ruby slippers aren’t even red. So, all ye who enter here, check your cynicism at the door and get in touch with the little kid inside you who’s been begging to get out. Neither of you will want to leave 'Wicked.'"
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"What is spectacular about the show is the spectacle. That old Emerald City has never had it so good, with flying monkeys and giant Munchkins with extendable necks. Kids will love it, even if they don’t quite understand it. But this yellow brick road is also paved with oppressive music and banal, if sometimes pretentiously amusing, lyrics and a complex, if foolish, book."
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"'Wicked's' at its cleverest with the girl stuff; the streamlining of Maguire’s story – reducing a totalitarian allegory to an animal-rights flap – weakens the narrative logic. Catchy Stephen Schwartz songs compensate for a dreary opening number, but it’s the 'Wicked' witches who really make magic."
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"It's an ambitious musical...There are so many wonderful things in Wicked that to dismiss it as so many critics have done strikes us as perverse...It has a heart, a brain, and the nerve to have opened on Broadway."
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