‘Wicked’ web of witchery is weaved
Dorothy Gale had it easy. All she and her traveling pals had to do was follow the yellow brick road.
Bringing the Emerald City to Glitter City takes a bit more planning - and a lot more baggage.
More than a dozen tractor-trailers, traveling south from Salt Lake City on Interstate 15, transported "Wicked" to Las Vegas' Smith Center.
The curtain goes up tonight on a six-week run of the Tony-winning musical, which focuses on the early years of "The Wizard of Oz's" dueling witches.
Dozens of crew members have been working since Monday morning to make sure those flying monkeys are ready to spread their wings.
To say nothing of Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, whose ability to take flight inspires one of "Wicked's" best-known songs, "Defying Gravity."
After seven-plus years on the road and more than 3,100 performances, "Wicked's" Emerald City company - the first national tour - is settling into Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts. (The show's second national tour carries a less glittering moniker: Munchkinland.)
Oswald, "Wicked's" trademark time clock dragon, hovers atop the theater's proscenium, spreading his mechanical wings. He may have the wingspan of a small Cessna aircraft, but he's hardly as sturdy, being made of painted Styrofoam.
Oswald has a central role in the show, "Wicked" stage manager Jason Daunter says .
"He's the first image people see," Daunter points out. And as such, Oswald signals to audiences that they're not in Las Vegas anymore - and that they're "going to Oz."
Oswald took his perch Monday.
By Tuesday morning, stagehands had installed a safety layer - a foundation, if you will - beneath "Wicked's" stage deck, which enables automated effects such as fog and smoke.
"Wicked" has five automation tracks, company manager Steve Quinn says.
Without them, Elphaba and her monkeys wouldn't be able to defy gravity. And Glinda the Good Witch wouldn't be able to descend in her own personal bubble, decked out in a $15,000 dress.
Crew members test the show's extensive effects daily, Quinn says, and "if someone's not secured properly, the effects don't work."
But "there's always a risk in doing theater," he acknowledges. "Even dancing can be dangerous: You can pull a muscle."
Should one of "Wicked's" 32 performers pull a muscle, he or she can always turn to the physical therapist, one of more than 70 company members - from musicians to stagehands to makeup artists - traveling with the Emerald City tour.
"It's a small army," Quinn says.
But it's not a big enough army to get, and keep, "Wicked" up and running, so the show recruits reinforcements at each tour stop, he says.
Two local hairstylists join the two company members to wash and reset the hundred wigs used in the show, Quinn says. Nine locals augment the three-member wardrobe crew to look after the show's $2 million array of costumes, which are all handmade and custom-designed.
Seven people handle the required stitching and repairs, he adds.
On Tuesday morning, about 60 stagehands unload "Wicked's" trucks, parked on the loading dock behind Reynolds Hall. Because The Smith Center dock can handle three trucks at a time, crews can unload them faster than at most other stops, Quinn notes.
During the load-in, wooden crates line the back hallways, awaiting delivery backstage; labels declare their contents, whether prosaic (towels) or exotic (monkey wings).
Backstage, assistant electrician Jacob Martin helps set up lights.
"There's a billion lights in the show," he jokes. But seriously, folks, "Wicked" has "at least 200" lights, Martin says - including neon in Emerald City-appropriate green.
And on the back of the upstage cog wall are dozens of photographs, recording "Wicked's" previous tour stops.
"One of our carpenters created our 'Wicked' Wall of Fame," Quinn says, likening it to "our Facebook wall. ... It's fun for those of us who have been on the road for a while to see where the heck we've been."
As stagehands scurry about the Reynolds Hall stage, merchandising co-manager Joe Emeis and two colleagues get to work in the lobby, setting up mannequin torsos on the marble floors and dressing them in the latest "Wicked" fashions.
It takes one tractor-trailer to haul "Wicked's" T-shirts, sweatshirts, track jackets, programs, pins, keychains, CDs and other assorted tchotchkes; they're packed in custom tour cases sporting the same clockwork-gear design that shows up onstage. Hardly a coincidence, Quinn points out; "Wicked" set designer Eugene Lee and associate scenic designer Eddie Pearce also designed the cases.
"It's not your standard show T-shirts," Quinn says of the show's expansive souvenir line.
If the show weren't memorable in the first place, however, nobody would want a souvenir.
And that appeal, Daunter suggests, remains the key to "Wicked's" success.
"We have all the bells and whistles, from flying to magic," he says of the production, but "it's got a big ol' heart. That's why the show speaks to people."
Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.
