Feeling Ozmopolitan Today

No, I did not make up that word...but someone else did. Eric and I went to see Wicked in Jacksonville on Tuesday night! Mom and Dad met us for dinner at the Landing, which was very nice, and then we walked next door to the Times-Union Center to see the musical. It was a great show! All of the performers were wonderful, the story is captivating and touching, and the music is out of this world. I give it two thumbs up.

Here are a few interesting facts about the musical, just for fun:

• Wicked, A New Musical is based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, a novel by Gregory Maguire.
• One of the main characters, Elphaba--who grows up to be the Wicked Witch of the West--was named by Maguire after the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum.
• The musical score features a six-note theme that reappears in different tonalities and moods throughout the story.
• A seven-note musical motif, the Unlimited theme, is the first seven notes of "Over the Rainbow," a tribute to the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.
• Some notable celebrities who have performed in different reincarnations of Wicked include original Broadway cast members Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, Joel Grey, and Carole Shelley; Ana Gasteyer, Taye Diggs, Joey McIntyre, Ben Vereen, Carol Kane, Tom McGowan (who played The Wizard in the tour we saw and whom we saw on the street before the performance!), and Jo Anne Worley.
• The citizens of Oz have their own captivating vocabulary (see Subject), including words like rejoicify, proudliest, outuendo, confusifying, linguification, de-greenify, disturberance, scandalacious, hideodious, devastrated, braverism, discoverate, disrespectation, and festivating!