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WICKED, PART TWO: FOR GOOD – John Powell and Stephen Schwartz
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I don’t expect that even the most ardent fans of the original stage musical could have anticipated the impact and acclaim received by Wicked, Part One, following its release just before Christmas in 2024. It received 10 Oscar nominations (winning for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design), grossed more than $750 million at the global box office, and became something of a cultural phenomenon, turning the already-famous leading actresses Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande into megastars, and raising the profile of lead actor Jonathan Bailey enormously. Read more…
WICKED, PART ONE – John Powell and Stephen Schwartz
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I don’t think a stage musical had captured the attention of mainstream American society the way that Wicked did since the heyday of Andrew Lloyd Webber in the 1980s. It’s interesting how over the last thirty years or so, for the most part, Broadway and West End shows have started to slide out of popular culture and into a niche. It used to be that a new work by Rodgers and Hammerstein, or Stephen Sondheim, or indeed Lloyd Webber, would be big news. The showstopping main number would probably top the charts, and the music would quickly become part of public consciousness and the cultural lexicon. However, and with the obvious exception of Hamilton, the last time this really happened was when Wicked premiered on Broadway in 2004. It was a bonafide smash, making stars out of its two leads Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, and thrusting composer Stephen Schwartz back into the spotlight in a way he hadn’t been since his successes with Godspell and Pippin in the early 1970s. And now, twenty years after its stage premiere, Wicked has finally been turned into a movie. Read more…
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