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 (25)

"'Wicked' tries, in its ambition, to do so much that it's inevitable that it fails to be a smooth, cohesive show. It's too long - two-hours-45- minutes - and it often has a lumbering quality. But its reach, its attempt to be meaty and relevant and theatrical, is not only admirable, it’s stimulating. This is a musical that offers many pleasures as you watch it, and - this is rare - also stays with you."
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"Wicked, a hideous mess of a musical that wants to be many different things, and rarely succeeds in being any of them. All this from a creative team that, aesthetically speaking, seems barely able to walk and chew gum at the same time."
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"I continually come across people who want to shame me for my abiding love for Wicked. Something this popular, they seem to say, can't possibly be good. I beg to disagree. Wicked is simultaneously an entertaining, well crafted, and intelligent show."
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"A lavish, ambitious and problematic new Broadway musical that dares to see Oz from another angle."
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"No one mourns the wicked," goes one big number in the new Broadway musical Wicked. But in this shrewd and enjoyable retelling of the Wizard of Oz story from the witches' point of view, they get something better: understanding."
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"To begin with, it looks like a million dollars - or, to be more precise, like every dime of the $14 million that has been spent on it. Dare we say it? Here's a Broadway show where the ticket price doesn't seem inflated. You will actually feel that you got $100 worth of entertainment - and then some... The show and its many parts do coalesce to create a believable, and extremely thought-provoking, alternate universe, with music, sets, costumes and performances that simply take your breath away."
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"It's safe to say that this is the most complete, and completely satisfying, new musical I've come across in a long time...Wicked offers a post-feminist, socially conscious reinterpretation of the story of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West...A fine ensemble helps ensure that even the most flagrantly cute and sentimental moments are hard to resist."
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"Great leads. Clever source material. Fans who turn the show into a religion, spending hundreds—thousands—of dollars on repeat visits."
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