Wicked is a Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, an alternative telling of the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The musical is told from the perspective of the witches of the Land of Oz; its plot begins before and continues after Dorothy Gale's arrival in Oz from Kansas, and it includes several references to the 1939 film and Baum's novel. Wicked tells the story of two unlikely friends, Elphaba and Galinda , who struggle through opposing personalities and viewpoints, rivalry over the same love-interest, reactions to the Wizard's corrupt government, and, ultimately, Elphaba's public fall from grace. Produced by Universal Stage Productions in coalition with Marc Platt, Jon B. Platt and David Stone, with direction by Joe Mantello and choreography by Wayne Cilento, the original production of Wicked premiered on Broadway at the Gershwin Theatre in October 2003, after completing pre-Broadway tryouts at San Francisco's Curran Theatre in May/June 2003. Its original stars included Idina Menzel as Elphaba, Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda, and Joel Grey as the Wizard. The original Broadway production won three Tony Awards and six Drama Desk Awards, while its original cast album received a Grammy Award. Wicked celebrated its tenth anniversary on Broadway on October 30, 2013. On July 12, 2018, with its 6,138th performance, it surpassed A Chorus Line to become Broadway's sixth-longest running show. A typical performance takes approximately two hours and 30 minutes, plus a 15-minute intermission.The success of the Broadway production has spawned several other productions worldwide, including various North American productions, a long-running Laurence Olivier Award–nominated West End production, and a series of international productions. Since its 2003 debut, Wicked has broken box-office records around the world, currently holding weekly-gross-takings records in Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, and London. In the week ending January 2, 2011, the London, Broadway, and both North American touring productions simultaneously broke their respective records for the highest weekly gross. In the final week of 2013, the Broadway production broke this record again, earning $3.2 million. The West End production and the North American tour have each been seen by over two million patrons. In March 2016, Wicked surpassed $1 billion in total Broadway revenue, joining both The Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King as the only Broadway shows to do so. In July 2017, Wicked surpassed The Phantom of the Opera as Broadway's second-highest grossing show, trailing only The Lion King.
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