Casting Announced for WICKED at The Bushnell
So Much Happened Before Dorothy Dropped In -
Broadway's Biggest Blockbuster Comes to Hartford
November 14 - December 9, 2007
WICKED is a new musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, Academy Award winner for Pocahontas and The Prince of Egypt) and book by Winnie Holzman (“My So Called Life,” “Once And Again” and “thirtysomething”) based on the best-selling 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire. WICKED is set to return to Hartford’s The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, November 14 – December 9, 2007.
The role of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) will be played by Carmen Cusack, and Glinda (the Good Witch) will be played by Katie Rose Clark. Playing the role of Madame Morrible will be Alma Cuervo, and the The Wizard will be played by P.J. Benjamin .
The musical is directed by 2003 and 2004 Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Take Me Out, Assassins, Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Vagina Monologues, Glengarry Glenn Ross) and features musical staging by Tony Award winner Wayne Cilento (Aida, The Who’s Tommy, How To Succeed…). WICKED , winner of 15 major awards, including a Grammy® Award and 3 Tony® Awards, is the untold story of the witches of Oz. It is produced by Marc Platt, Universal Pictures, The Araca Group, Jon B. Platt and David Stone.
Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the land of Oz. One - born with emerald green skin - is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. WICKED tells the story of their remarkable odyssey, how these two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.
Carmen Cusack joins the tour from the Chicago production of WICKED . Originally from Texas, Carmen spent 14 years living in London where she was seen in Les Miserables, The Secret Garden and Personals. Among her many international credits, her favorites include Phantom of the Opera, Grease, Chess and Over the Rainbow.
Katie Rose Clarke is new to the WICKED family. Most recently, she portrayed the role of Clara Johnson in the Broadway production, live PBS broadcast and national tour of The Light in the Piazza. Other credits include the debut of Craig Lucas’ new play, Prayer for My Enemy, at the Long Wharf Theatre, as well as Anything Goes at Theatre Under the Stars.
Alma Cuervo’s many Broadway credits include Beauty and the Beast (as Mrs. Potts), Cabaret, Titanic (as the original Ida Straus), The Heidi Chronicles and Quilters, to name a few. She received an Obie for Uncommon Women and Others and a Barrymore Award for Beauty Queen of Leenane.
P.J. Benjamin has been working in show business for well over thirty years. Broadway credits include leading roles in Chicago, Torch Song Trilogy, Bob Fosse’s Pippin, Charlie and Algernon, Sarava and Wind in the Willows.
WICKED features set design by Tony® Award winning Eugene Lee (Ragtime, Show Boat, Candide, Sweeney Todd), costume design by Tony® winner Susan Hilferty (Into the Woods, Assassins), lighting design by Tony nominee® Kenneth Posner (Hairspray) and sound design by Tony Meola (The Lion King and the recent Man of La Mancha). Stephen Oremus is the show’s music director. Orchestrations are by William David Brohn, with dance arrangements by James Lynn Abbott .
The national tour of WICKED has “cast quite a spell” (Washington Post) throughout North America. It opened at Toronto’s Canon Theatre on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 and sold out a seven-week run. WICKED has continued to break box office records and sell out multiple-week engagements in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Boston to name a few.
WICKED, “Broadway’s biggest blockbuster” (The New York Times) began performances in New York on Wednesday, October 8, 2003 at The Gershwin Theatre and continues to be the top-grossing show on Broadway. WICKED is “good enough to run for a decade or two,” proclaims The Wall Street Journal. It’s “a cultural phenomenon,” exclaims Variety. “If every musical had the brain, the heart and the courage of WICKED , Broadway really would be a magical place,” states Time Magazine.
The Chicago company of WICKED took the stage on Friday, June 24, 2005 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre, and the Los Angeles production of WICKED started performances at the Pantages Theatre on February 10, 2007.
There are currently two international productions of WICKED: a London production, which opened in September 2006 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, and a Japanese-language production, which opened on June 17, 2007 in Tokyo, Japan. A German-language production of WICKED will open in Stuttgart on November 15, 2007 and an Australian production will open in Melbourne, Australia on July 12, 2008.
Grammy Award-Winning Cast recording available on Decca Broadway. For more information about WICKED log on to www.wickedthemusicaltour.com.