‘Wicked’ Hits the Road, Carries Hopes of Broadway Tours

DALLAS – Talia Suskauer knows what it’s like to be green. He remembers the feeling of pigment and powder on his arms, neck and face; how the color seeps into his pores and stays behind his ears; What it was like to see a strange yet familiar self looking back in the mirror.

He didn’t know that painting one more time in Dallas on a hot July afternoon would make him cry.

Sixteen months after the touring production of “Wicked,” starring Suskauer’s green-skinned witch Elphaba, was forced to shut down, the cast and crew reunited in Dallas for a major effort to start over. The show’s first performance here on Tuesday, the first performance of any touring Broadway production since the coronavirus pandemic shut down shows nationwide, will be a sign of hope for a battered theater industry, but also a test at a time when it’s spreading. The Delta variant once again worried the Americans.

“Every show will be someone’s first return to theater, so every show will be emotional,” Suskauer said. She burst into tears as she returned to the makeup chair for the first time since the tour ended on March 13, 2020, in Madison, Wis. “I felt like our purpose had been taken away,” he said, “and now, going back, it’s overwhelming.”

The tour is a big part of the commercial theater ecosystem. It’s big money – in its most recent full theatrical season, 18.5 million people attended touring shows in North America and these productions grossed $1.6 billion.

The resumption of touring will once again allow people living far from New York to see the Broadway titles. And it will provide much-needed income for actors, musicians and other theater workers left jobless by the pandemic.

“If anyone doesn’t love a national tour, there’s one thing they can’t get,” said Cleavant Derricks, who won a Tony Award in 1982 for her role in the original Broadway production of “Dreamgirls,” and now plays the magician. In the “bad” round. “You go from state to state, you meet different people, you see different sides of the country, and you get applause every night. How can you beat such a thing?”

A revisionist backstory to “The Wizard of Oz,” “Wicked” is a musical theater juggernaut that opened on Broadway in 2003, sold more than $5 billion in tickets, and was watched by more than 60 million people in nearly 100 cities. Earth. The show, which revolves around a strained friendship between the witches Elphaba and Glinda, has been going on for so long that Suskauer and her co-star and Floridian friend Allison Bailey both saw it as a child.

“I saw it in New York when I was in seventh grade and it was so magical,” said Bailey, who plays Glinda. “That’s why I wanted to do theatre.”

“Wicked,” a book featuring songs by Stephen Schwartz, written by Winnie Holzman and directed by Joe Mantello, has been touring North America since 2005. The tour now travels from city to city in 13 trucks carrying the set, sound and light equipment. , more than 300 costumes and nearly 100 wigs.

The tour company consists of 33 actors, a crew of 18, six musicians, three stage managers, two company executives and a physiotherapist, along with 16 dogs, a cat and three ferrets brought to accompany them. The travel company is then assisted by 32 local crew members and nine local musicians at each stop, as well as dozens of stagehands to help load the set in and out.

The resumption of the “Wicked” tour, which began a month before the first musicals were scheduled to resume on Broadway, will soon be followed by others: from mid-August, touring productions of “Hamilton” will continue in San Francisco, Los. Angeles, Atlanta and Tempe, Ariz. and in September “Frozen” and “My Fair Lady” tours as well as “What the Constitution Means to Me” play will be on the road.

Ticket holders to Broadway shows in New York showing proof of vaccination and wearing a mask is mandatory, at least until October. In Dallas, touring production of “Wicked” requires vaccinations for the cast and crew, but not for the audience. instructed to wear masks. Actors will be prevented from interacting with the audience, meaning no autographs or selfies at the stage door, and no behind-the-scenes tours.

Early indications are that viewers are eager to return: The five-week Dallas run sold strongly, with prices holding steady, from $25 for a lottery ticket to $169 for the best seats.

When the pandemic forced the tour to shut down last year, the crew packed the set and costumes into boxes and left them at the Madison theater, thinking they’d be back in a few weeks. Then, as the closing dragged on, the team returned to load these boxes onto trucks. Ten of the trucks were parked in a truck yard in Wisconsin for nearly a year, while three, containing temperature-sensitive electronics, wigs, and a wardrobe, were sent to a climate-controlled warehouse in Pennsylvania.

Some members of the company went home, but some didn’t have a home – they’re often on the road a lot, they don’t need them – so they stayed with their families or rented something from somewhere.

“Since I got married, I have never stayed home for so long,” said Andrea DiVincenzo Shairs, the tour’s hairstylist, who has been with “Wicked” since 2003. “I went to Fort Lauderdale—my husband is there—and we actually still love each other, so it worked!”

Reuniting was fun, but starting over was complicated, and the show took three weeks to prepare at Dallas’ Music Hall in Fair Park, with the 3,420-seat venue “Wicked” returning for the sixth time. The cast was rusty and the show had to rehearse, while the crew had to evaluate each piece of equipment for possible damage after months of inactivity.

“We were worried about what would come out of the trucks,” said David O’Brien, the tour’s production manager. “If we open these clothes boxes, what will we find and what will they smell like?”

There were minor issues—a dimmer shelf that needed reprogramming, and a warped board that caused a floating statue to get stuck on the set floor—but for the most part, the team were happy with how well the equipment held up.

While the crew reassembled the Tony-winning set, the actors rehearsed in the lobby and worked on a spring-loaded floor rented from the Texas Ballet Theatre. “Unlike singing with multiple people, it’s been 16 months since they’ve sung in your shower,” said Evan Roider, the tour’s music director, “but they came back ready to go.”

Jokes were made about enlarged waistlines and forgotten dance steps. “A little more relaxed this time!” Suskauer talked about her costume when a button popped while she was rehearsing.

The cast was polishing the details as they worked in the theater under a proscenium featuring the show’s red-eyed dragon. “Watch out for your asana!” Associate director Lisa Leguillou instructed Bailey while rehearsing her entry in a floating balloon. “She’s covering her face!”

Of course, there are new safety protocols that the “Wicked” team shares in video meetings as teams from other rounds prepare to restart as well. Some precautions are now familiar: copious amounts of hand sanitizer, plus masks, gloves and air purifiers. But there are also more theater-specific strategies. Ultraviolet sticks are used to clean the inside of the mask so that too much disinfectant does not cause a headache for the players. Players now scan QR codes for journal entries instead of the traditional login page on a board. And chambers are installed in the orchestra pit to try to contain the aerosols emitted from the reed and brass instruments.

“Our biggest concern was how we were going to reinvent what we’ve been doing in the Covid world,” said Steve Quinn, company manager of the tour, who has toured with “Wicked” for 16 years. “We’re guinea pigs and we’re just trying to navigate that.”

The company’s excitement about getting back together and putting on a show is tempered by some concerns, especially among the team. “I want to make sure I have all my foundations covered so no one gets sick or injured by something I hadn’t thought of,” said Joyce B. McGilberry, the tour’s makeup supervisor. “I wanted to go back but I can’t deny my worries.”

The tour company has a wide range of experience. Rebecca Gans Reavis has been playing a flying monkey just a week before the tour closed, while wardrobe chef Laurel Parrish has been with “Wicked” since it opened on Broadway.

Heartbroken, Reavis spent the pandemic with her husband in Kan., Wichita, where her mother was teaching in her dance studio; Parrish in northern Manhattan worked for a cheese salesman while taking on passion projects in embroidery and sewing.

“I don’t think I knew how much I missed it until I started back up,” Parris said. “Seeing the clothes was like seeing old friends.”

When the show’s two cast chose not to return after the pandemic, this created openings for the return of an alumnus, Clifton Davis, the oldest member of the 75-year-old touring staff, and a newbie, Anthony Lee Bryant, Los Angeles, who auditioned for the show six times before landing a spot. based dancer.

“Theatre is resurgent, thank God,” said Davis, who enjoyed going a second time as Glinda (known as Galinda at the time) and Doctor Dillamond, a knowledgeable goat who taught at Shiz University while Elphaba was a student there. Davis previously played the same role in 2012.

While Bryant meticulously took notes on his dance moves and practiced the Davis angel, some moments certainly turned out differently, even if they were crafted years ago. The most important of them all: the opening line that Bailey sings as she floats on Glinda’s balloon.

“It’s good to see me, isn’t it?”

“I think I’ll say the same, but it will feel different,” Bailey said. “I feel like I’m speaking on behalf of the theatre.”