What if Sondheim had written WICKED?

I wonder what we would have on our hands if Sonheim had written Wicked...
Don't worry die hards, we can keep Kristen and Idina. I'm just curious. :)

It would definitely have been Best Musical Material then. He has the perfect style for a dark story like this one (should have been, based on the book). Schwartz butcher'd it.

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Does anyone else think that some of Wicked's "chorus music" sucks?

One of the problems I had with WICKED was that the chorus is made up of primarily dancers who sing. But because the choreography was villified in SF, much of it was reduced and the chorus then could only make an impression vocally, which was not their strong point.

I give them credit for putting up with that, though. It could not have been easy.

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Ticket and OBCR sales would be down, that's for sure.
Schwartz is able to attract the all important music hoarding teenage girl squad. Sondheim usually embraces a slightly older crowd... Nothing wrong with that.
It's kind of like Justin Timberlake and Mozart. Everyone to their own side.

..And there would be HORDES of people on this board claiming that "Sondheim's "Wicked" was "misunderstood" and that if mounted with the right cast, in the right theatre, with the right director, with the right alignment of the stars and the right astrological influences.... IT WOULD BE A HIT!

(rolls eyes)

the book is so much better than the musical anyway. the show took the easy road out on EVERYTHING, the only concept they really kept was that the "wicked witch" wasnt really wicked, so they turned her into a saint, something she most def. was not in the book becasue she was a character with actual human traits- and not joan of arc. i'll give the show this: it is a fun night at the theater, but after reading the book i feel that the story was cheapened. the book gave so many opportunities for an amazing show with a thrilling score and wonderful dramatic moments, and i think that sondheim deals with those in a more true, and amazingly still theatrical way.

Schwartz is keeping up with the times, which he seems to have done consistantly.

And Schwartz doesn't, that doesn't make him any better or worse. I've noticed being on these boards that alot of people are very closeminded and geared strictly towards Sondheim.

"Schwartz is able to attract the all important music hoarding teenage girl squad. Sondheim usually embraces a slightly older crowd."
Well, I'm a teenage girl, and I like Sondheim. But then again I'm loony : )

But he didn't.

This is an intrestng what-if, but does no one see the influence of INTO THE WOODS on WICKED, even if inadverent/unintended? Really, take "No Good Deed," which has some of the eleven o'clock spot brio of "Last Midnight," and not just because both numbers have witches and arrivals/departures via holes in the stage. Glinda's musical idiom owes a lot to some of the fractured fairy tale (remember those, baby boomers?) style used in WOODS, particularly in the Baker's wife stuff. Schwartz writes pop-infused material, but in these two witch-centered shows, both he and Mr. Sondheim contemporized fantasy, freely and consistently use an anachronistic vocab for archtypes to voice deeper feelings. And at least one SF review called "No One Mourns the Wicked" a Sondheim-flavored melody. So I'm not crazy.

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I meant it from a financial standpoint. He is extremely talented & the 1970's original version of Follies is still in my mind today. A defining moment in musical theater history

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