'Let It Go' in Wicked
'Let It Go' in Wicked
#1'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 11:20am
Hi
I saw the UK tour production of Wicked last night in Edinburgh, it was excellent! However, I noticed right before For Good Glinda tells Elphaba to 'Let It Go'. Obviously the other four times I've seen this show I've never noticed that before due it they being pre Frozen. It got an appreciative laugh from the audience. Obviously there has been many comparences between Elsa and Elphaba. Just wondering if the NYC and/or West End audiences are also picking this up and giving a knowing laugh?!
Updated On: 1/6/15 at 11:20 AM
Pootie2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/1/14
#2'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 11:38am
It's just a coincidence. That bit is entirely after-the-fact and unrelated to each other. There have been a number of interviews with Frozen's songwriters, and Wicked was never mentioned; Kristen Anderson-Lopez is credited to have found the "let it go" hook by herself. NOW audiences hearing it in Wicked may laugh, but it's just a coincidence (not to mention a pretty common phrase by itself before the film).
On the other hand, the lyrics for "Some Other Me" in IF/THEN may very well have been planted.
#BoycottTrumplikePattiMurin
Updated On: 1/6/15 at 11:38 AM
#2'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 11:51am
Of course it's a coincidence... I was just wondering if other audiences are connecting the two the same way the audience I was with last night did!
Updated On: 1/6/15 at 11:51 AM
Pootie2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/1/14
#3'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 12:06pm
Haven't audiences always laughed at Glinda's dialogue about the shoes? (How do you not notice the actual dialogue four times? It was comedic before Frozen.) Rather, it's not like people can tease apart the level of Frozen effect on that comedic bit, but I don't doubt there is some post-viewer knowledge going on.
#BoycottTrumplikePattiMurin
Updated On: 1/6/15 at 12:06 PM
#4'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 12:38pmThis is similar but less immediately obvious to the moment when James Earl Jones hd to mention "the dark side" in his show last year.
#5'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 12:51pm
Audiences definitely chuckle at it now.
I saw the very comedic Jenni Barber as Glinda this summer and she actually kind of sang the "let it go" line and it got a good laugh. More recently Tiffany Haas just said it, but it's always said very boldly, and people still laughed.
I like a good rhyme more than a good time
#6'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 3:22pmI don't think it's because of Frozen. Having by chance seen the show five times all before Frozen came out, audiences always laughed at that line.
"Was uns befreit, das muss stärker sein als wir es sind." -Tanz der Vampire
#7'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 3:25pmAudiences have always chuckled at that line when I've seem it,before frozen
ghostlight2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/5/04
#8'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 3:30pmThese things do sometimes just happen. When Michael Cerveris left Titanic for Hedwig, there were already lines about the Titanic survivors staying in that hotel. The biggest inadverdant laugh he got (also in the script) was when he had to say "Tommy? Tommy, can you hear me?"
#9'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 3:48pmThanks for the pre-Frozen insight. It's tension-breaking line and a good Glinda line so it makes sense it would get a laugh. Jenni Barber definitely sang it to the Frozen tune which was funny and I wondered if that was a regular thing.
I like a good rhyme more than a good time
#10'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 3:52pmThey also joke about it in The Lion King. I think it's Pumba who draws out the line "Let It Go" in a sing songy way. Not sure if they did it that way before but the crowed definitely acknowledges it.
Pootie2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/1/14
#11'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 4:03pmOh, the phrase exists in Lion King too. It'd be interesting to see before/after-Frozen performances and how much the performers "play up" a retroactive pop culture moment, which may not be appropriate for every show (definitely appropriate for Wicked re:Menzel, but the dialogue was originally funny anyway). Those moments that are already written into a show (James Earl Jones, some moments in IF/THEN, etc.) can still be funny, but I would guess the retroactive references like this are quite rare.
#BoycottTrumplikePattiMurin
#12'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 5:12pmI remember watching the Encores! Whistle (almost 5 years ago now, boy!), and Hapgood (Raul Esparza) said the phrase "Being Alive" (if I remember correctly), and the audience gave a bit of response Thought that was a nice moment.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
Visceral_Fella
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/18/12
#13'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 7:46pm
It's definitely coincidence, that line has always gotten a laugh, and I doubt non theatre die hards ,which we often forget is most of the audience, draw the parallel. It's kind of an obscure parallel actually.
I remember Stephanie J. Block saying "No good deed goes unpunished" in 9 to 5.
#15'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/6/15 at 10:54pm
Coincidentally or not, the identical or similar lines frequently appear in different shows. "Make your choice" (I think in the same words) appears in both Phantom and Beauty and the Beast, in similar circumstances, except that, in BATB, the female protag must choose between the Beast and her father, rather than between the Phantom and another suitor. "You try my patience" in POTO becomes something similar in BATB, again in similar circumstances. Also, there's a magic mirror in both. When I saw BATB last summer, I decided that it and Phantom are two versions of the same story.
In light of the number of crossover cast members between POTO and Les Miz and the number of people who link the two shows in their minds (some non-theater people going so far as to insist ALW wrote Les Miz!), I'm always amused by the line "Phantom faces at the window" in Les Miz. I'm sure that, in this case, it's a coincidence.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
CathyFromLex
Swing Joined: 10/9/13
#16'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/7/15 at 12:39amWhen Sierra Boggess (Love Never Dies) played Fantine in Les Mis, she had to sing "I dreamed that love would never die." I wonder if that ever got a reaction?
blaxx
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
#17'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/7/15 at 1:41am^ Yes, the audience rolled their eyes so far back they all looked like zombies.
Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE
#18'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/7/15 at 9:15am
Stephanie J Block swore that the no good deed line predated her being attached to the project
And for the record There is a let it go moment in Rock of Ages that has gotten more of a laugh this last year since the song went so viral.
#19'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/7/15 at 9:20am
"^ Yes, the audience rolled their eyes so far back they all looked like zombies."
Blaxx, you made me spit out my captain crunch! HAHA
Updated On: 1/7/15 at 09:20 AM
swmwithsharks
Swing Joined: 1/11/11
#20'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/7/15 at 10:10am"Let It Go" has always been in Wicked. It's called "Defying Gravity".
carolinaguy
Broadway Star Joined: 10/13/06
#21'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/7/15 at 11:58amI remember laughing a lot at Cheno's delivery of "Let it go!" way back ten years before "Frozen" came out. In fact, it was kind of a takeaway line for me. I can remember going shopping and lusting over some very expensive footwear several times after that and thinking, "They're just shoes! Let it go."
Just remembering you've had an "and"
When you're back to "or"
Makes the "or" mean more than it did before
killerqueenx
Swing Joined: 1/19/15
#22'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/19/15 at 7:55pmNot Broadway I know, but I saw Wicked in London last September, and Savannah Stevenson flat out played it for laughs and sang "Let it Go", albeit fairly softly. The audience lapped it up!
pmensky
Broadway Star Joined: 7/18/11
#23'Let It Go' in Wicked
Posted: 1/19/15 at 8:04pmIn the Rent film, Idina screams, "Let it go" at the audience during her "Over the Moon" performance when she's trying to get everyone to moo.
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