Wicked returning to Chicago's Oriental Theatre

Patti Murin and Dee Roscioli in the touring company of Wicked

Photo: Joan Marcus

Wicked, the musical phenomenon prequel to The Wizard of Oz that enjoyed a nearly four-year run at the Oriental Theatre from 2005 to 2009, will return for an eight-week engagement this fall, Broadway in Chicago says. An onsale date for individual tickets is yet to be announced.

Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, Wicked imagines a pre-Dorothy backstory for the Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda the Good and several other characters familiar from L. Frank Baum's original and the 1939 MGM film.

The show has music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman; though it lost the 2004 Tony Awards for best musical, book and score to Avenue Q, Wicked has gone on to set box office records in a number of cities. The new stop by one of Wicked's touring companies will hit Chicago October 30–December 21, coinciding with the ten-year anniversary of the musical's Broadway production, which opened October 30, 2003 and is still running.

One of Wicked's lead producers, Marc Platt, is also the father of Ben Platt, who's starring as Elder Cunningham in the Chicago production of The Book of Mormon at the Bank of America Theatre, a few blocks south of the Oriental.