My First Broadway Show

    While I certainly wasn't in New York City watching "Wicked" on Broadway I was at the Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in Dayton and that's about as close as I'm going to get.  At least right now.  Sitting in that theater was thrilling.  I think the difference between something you'd see on stage verses on screen is that, even though in both cases you are sitting and watching, in the case of watching something on stage I think that because you are interacting with the cast on stage (applause, etc) your brain is more engaged.  Whereas in a movie people have a tendency to just sit.   That said, both venues can cause a similar response.  I think though that seeing anything in person is better. The one thing that impressed me the most about Wicked as the talent of the cast. One part in particular I remember. The actor who played the wizard was speaking and dancing around the stage while he did so. At one point he swung his foot up keeping  in time with the music.  It reminded me how much of a character the music is.   It will carry you from scene to scene and the fact that a dancer can keep in time with it is amazing.  At the same time, actors in any given movie can give performances of a lifetime.  I will never forget seeing Heath Ledger playing the Joker in "The Dark Knight", Sean Connery in Hunt for Red October, or Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, just to name a few.  That's why I'm really looking forward to "The Dark Knight Rises" coming out in July. 
    I will say though that the whole production really was amazing.  The sets, the costumes, the writing, the dancing and the music.  Not surprisingly, the character of the witch that I remember watching in The Wizard of Oz was nothing like the one they portrayed.  There was much more depth to her.  And to feel the power of music in a story was something I hadn't forgotten.  There are two things I think I will do though.  Read the book The Wizard of Oz as well as Wicked as I am now very curious about both.  I know that The Wizard of Oz is nothing like the movie and now I'm really curious about what they left out of both The Wizard of and Wicked!  And next time Broadway comes to town I'll be there!

Side note:  There are 14 books in the Wizard of Oz series. All written by L. Frank Baum.  The Wicked book is a series of  four  books written by Gregory Maguire.

Wicked:  The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Son of a Witch
A Lion Among Men
Out of Oz