WICKED!

Alex and I went to see the opening night performance of Wicked at the Auditorium Theater on Wednesday night. And it was FANTASTIC! We had a really nice time. First we went to eat at Biaggi's.... Alex's choice. We got to the theater in what I thought was plenty of time (30 minutes till showtime) and already the parking lot we usually use was completely full. But, that's OK. After parking across the street we walked through the other parking lot, and past the trailers. It is a tradition of Alex's to touch the trailer of whatever show we are seeing. This time she posed too. After the show we were treated to invitations to the Private Cast Party!!! (Thanks Papa!!) There were not many "regular" people there...maybe 20. Maggie Brooks was there too. At first we were both nervous to approach the actors (and honestly it was hard to tell who was who without their costumes!) but we finally worked up the nerve to go talk to people....

This is Tom Flynn (Doctor Dillamond) and Lee Wilkof (The Wizard of Oz). The Wizard we could recognize, but Doctor Dillamond wears a goat mask, so it was hard to pick him out.

This is Deedee Magno Hall who plays Nessa, the Wicked Witch of the East (the one the house falls on). She was so sweet and told Alex that she had a "beautiful face". She is married to the actor who plays Fiyero and they travel around together with their 3 year old son. I asked who stays with their son when they are performing. Normally her sister, she told us, but right now it was her mom. That's a lot of support! What a different life style.

This is Clifton Hall, who plays Fiyero. I think Alex was pretty excited to meet him!! He was pretty impressed that Alex was only 10, (he looked at her, looked at his wife and said, "You're really only in 5th grade?") had read Wicked, and had seen as many Broadway shows as she has seen (we counted around 11).

This is Katie Rose Clarke who is Glinda the Good Witch. She was actually the first person we approached. She was very gracious and sweet...and short! It's so funny how short they all are (except Dr. Dillamond) because they all see so much larger than life when they are up on stage.

And finally, this is Donna Vivino who played Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. If you look closely you can see the green tinge of her makeup near her hairline and on her hand. She flipped her hair over to show us how it was still quite green back there... she was going home ("Well, back to the hotel") to take a nice long shower. We told her that it is Alex's dream to be Elphaba on stage someday, and she said, "Well, that was my dream too!" Donna is the standby actress for Carmen Cusack who is normally cast as Elphaba on this tour. I'm not sure why there was a change in the casting, but Donna did say that when we see it on June 14th Carmen will be there... it will be neat to see the difference in the two.

Everyone was so nice. It was quite the experience! And now Alex is chomping at the bit to go to the RBTL Summer Stars camp. We also got to meet, and speak to at length, Bob Sagan who runs the RBTL camp..... so that was really cool.