Wicked/ Hamilton Music
Wicked 2003 musical Overhauls the Wicked Witch -Presents her as ... -Overtly ... Biting social critique Oz is ... Wizard uses Wicked Witch (Elphaba) as ... Manipulates public fear
-... a sympathetic character -...positive -...is politically corrupt -...a scapegoat
Wicked Book Based on ... Published in ... -First in a series of four books Spins The Wizard of Oz From ... She's not wicked She's the ...
-...Wicked by Gregory Maguire -...1995 -Wicked Witch's perspective -shes not wicked, shes the victim of intolerance
Hamilton and Innovation 4. Film released ... -Moved up from 2021 to 2020. 5. Explores issues of ... -From historical and modern standpoint -Re-introduces Alexander Hamilton's (messy) story
-...early due to pandemic -of class and ethnicity
Wicked 2003 musical -Conceived first as ... -No film has been made -Original investment ($14M) recouped in about one year -One of highest grossing Broadway shows -In 2017, earning ... Passed $1B revenue in ... Fifth longest running show on Broadway (6,386)
-...first as film, but switched to musical -1 million dollars a week -in May 2016
Elphaba (Wicked Witch of the West) -SHE SINGS, which ... Has most singing time of ... Original Wicked Witch (1939 film) ... Witches that do sing typically have: Not popular style
-...humanizes her -...of ALL Wicked characters -...does not sing - have: narrow range, unique style, often speech-like
Hamilton: Performance History Debuted in summer ... -Off Broadway, then moved to Broadway -Tickets became ... -By 2018, soundtrack hit 150 weeks in ...
-Summer 2015 -became most expensive in theatre history -in...Billboard top 40
Elphaba (Wicked Witch of the West) -Voice is ... -Has edge to voice b/c ... -Lends a sense of ... -But b/c of our emotional connection ... -Original Wicked Witch ... -Opposition to Oz community -Elphaba is not opposed to Oz community
-is not high (soprano) -belting (chest voice) -a sense of power -connection, she is not evil or scary -witch... is unable to sing
Hamilton and Innovation Almost completely sung through, like .. Much less ... Many argue the rap/hip-hop element is ... Are people conflating the two? Hip-hop and rap used on Broadway prior to Hamilton
-like...opera -much less rap than some suggest -is most innovative
Elphaba (Wicked Witch of the West)- Musical -Her voice is ... -Still has a wide range -Sings in a ... -Does not ... -Her solo numbers also expose her thoughts -These characteristics give her sense of normalcy.
-lower (alto) -in a popular style (does not shriek, does not cackle)
Wonderful" -Song for the ... -Not in 21st-century "popular" style -He is the true "other" - Reminiscent of Golden Age of film (1930s, 1940s) -Use of ... -Use of "______" sounds and instruments -Slide whistle, mutes, tinkly piano
-song for the wizard -older popular style -"other" - the true evil -use of full orchestra gamut of sounds -"silly"
Elphaba (Wicked Witch of the West)-Musical None of her good deeds ... -Her "otherness" is purely ... -LOOKS like a witch but doesn't ... -How does her voice sound?
-sway public perception -purely physical-her green skin -SOUND like one -bright voice, disney princess
Wicked
.Book musicals = music, dance integrated into the story 2.Based on earlier literary source 3.Brought important innovations to Broadway - NO 4.Have been made into films - NO 5.Story address social issues of difference, alienation, politics
Hamilton and Commonalities -1. This is a book musical -2. Based on a literary source -3. Important innovations -
2. Alexander Hamilton 2004 by ron chernow 3. music and genre
Elphaba (Wicked Witch of the West)-Musical -Name derives from L. Frank Baum's initials -Baum = L F B - - > Green skin = Can represent ... Can represent feelings of ...
=author of Wizard of Oz -El-pha-ba =an open metaphor -any difference -alienation
Original Cast
G(a)lindaplayed by Kristin Chenoweth -Elphaba played by Idina Menzel
Hamilton and Innovation
Hamilton is the kind of transformative theatrical experience that has only happened a few times in the history of American musicals. It joins the likes of Show Boat, Oklahoma! and West Side Story as game changers, innovative productions that forever redefined what came after them. Unlike most of its predecessors, however, Hamilton was created by one man, Lin‑Manuel Miranda, who wrote the music, lyrics, and book about the musical. Hamilton fuses American history with current politics, using a soundtrack of American popular music and one of the most inventive librettos ever written. The result is that nearly every song in the show works as a complex historical concert, layering musical pasts with the musical present, just as the historical past mingles with the political present. Miranda (who also plays the title role) is a clever and daring rhymester, cramming lots of information into most of Hamilton's 34 numbers. (Most musicals have a little more than half as many songs.) He expects you to lean forward and really listen to Hamilton (it's heartening that he does so), and rewards you amply for the effort.
Hamilton Performance history
London, late 2017 Puerto Rico, early 2019 Australia, March 2021
Hamilton and Innovation Principal roles
Principal roles (except King George) played by actors of color"Hamilton wouldn't have clicked with white actors in these roles. The theatrical, corporeal point, which can't be conveyed by the script or score alone, is that America's history—and its future—belong to men and women of color as profoundly as to anyone else."
The Hamilton Story
The StoryHamilton represents something of an anomaly in American history, a founding father who never transferred from official histories into popular mythology. There are many reasons for this, not least that Hamilton's positions were incompatible with many of our myths - he was avowedly elitist, for example, and supported the idea of a president for life - while his expansion of the federal government prompted the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, which he brutally suppressed. Neither of these facts makes it into Miranda's musical, which is the story of a "young, scrappy and hungry" immigrant from the West Indies who became the quintessential American success story through a combination of brains, hard work and audacity. Miranda creates a myth for Hamilton celebrating him as a symbol of immigrant inclusiveness, egalitarianism and meritocracy: historically it's a stretch, but theatrically it's genius. Eventually Hamilton became a hero of the American revolution, George Washington's right-hand man, the nation's first secretary of the treasury, the co-author (with James Madison) of The Federalist Papers, and the primary proponent for federal government over state government. He argued for a national bank, created the national reserve as well as the national debt, and laid the foundations for the US's economic success. His dramatic life came to a melodramatic end when he was killed in a duel by the sitting vice president, Aaron Burr. And yet, despite all these achievements and dramas, Hamilton has been marginalised by most popular accounts of American history.
