Well, Broadway, I don't like to compare...but since you asked, I'm going to have to....
With Wicked, there are so many things hidden that you have to see more than once to pick up. Not only with lines, lyrics, or stage effects, but with direction as well. It's also fun to see the way actors work with these characters (unlike the cardboard characters like Christine Daee or Raul).
Wicked is also humorous, and the "plagerism (sp)" is intentional, as some of the music takes off from the Wizard of Oz. Also, many of the songs are different with one main theme, as opposed to POTO which has many different themes and one main song.
Stephen Schwartz also wrote the lyrics, and I find it more challenging of a composer to write both the lyrics and music then it is for a composer to write one and take all the credit. (Honestly - how many POTO fans actually know who the lyricist is?)
Wicked flows.
POTO does not. It remains on one level.
Personally, I do not feel for any of the characters in POTO, the way I do for those in Wicked.
And Defying Gravity, as minimal as that effect is, comes off better than some cheap looking chandelier falling.
This note is also of preference - I enjoy Wicked's score more.
I did not want to compare, because those are two different musicals, but these are my opinions on the matter.
"Do you know what pledge time is, Andrew"? said the PBS Executive.
"Yes", Lloyd Webber replied. "My 50th birthday special must be one program that gets done a lot."
"No", mused the man from PBS heedlessy. "Not so much. Our Stephen Sondheim Carnegie Hall concert. That's a big one."
Spoons, forks and knives seemed suddenly to suspend their motion in horror, all around the table.
Updated On: 1/27/05 at 07:31 PM