Wicked Question

"But not every hit comes without a hitch. The Toronto premiere of The Emerald City tour was forced to postpone performances by a day after the show's star, Stephanie J. Block, was injured during a final dress rehearsal. The now-cut moment, which was to feature Elphaba flying onto stage prior to "No Good Deed," went awry – sidelining Block from the premiere for nearly three weeks."

Having Elphaba fly in was this added in just for the Toronto premier and then taken out when Stephanie got hurt or has Elphaba always flown on to the stage for this scene in the Broadway production? Whats the history behind the staging of this particular scene? I have only seen the tour so I am not sure how it is staged on Broadway. Thanks

taken from this playbill.com article
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/two-dozen-witches-and-790-million-later-wicked-first-national-tour-reaches-final-bow-343712

if the broadway production was before the Toronto production why did they add in her flying onto the stage?

I think it was a trial to see if they could do it for touring as opposed to trap door.

Thanks! :)

I think it was a trial to see if they could do it for touring as opposed to trap door.-
The above was correct. One of the wire broke/dropped and she had her neck badly dislocated tho she did not hit the ground.
And it occurred prior to the 1st performance. The standby was not even familiar enough to go on, instead they flew the understudy out from New York for a put in.



For the record, The Toronto Theatre had the trap door.

Sorry I was confusing the above comments is what I meant.

As mentioned above, it's not feasible to build a trap door (and more importantly the under-structure) into touring venues. On Broadway, where the set is more 'permanently' built-in, at the beginning of No Good Deed Elphaba rises from a trap door that is downstage centre (also used to disappear the male dancer during 'Have a little drink…"). The creative team wanted an effect for her entrance on tour, so the solution was to fly her in from the side of the stage. During tech rehearsals in Toronto, a computer error started moving one of the wires attached to Block's waist, and not the other on her opposite side. Pulling her in one direction, and keeping her in place by the other. This damaged her midsection/ribs quite badly. The opening preview was cancelled and Kristy Cates (a Broadway understudy/ensemble member) was flown in to take over for the first few weeks.

Saw the 2NT this past fall multiple times as an usher. The second time, I saw a change in light in a crack between the well and the door. Basically, Elphaba is behind the well when it is rolled out onto the stage. When Fiyero opens up the door, she is able to crawl out and shape shift her body to appear that she is coming up from under. Definitely not 100% sure but after seeing it a good amount of times, I am pretty confident something along the lines of this happens.

another minor difference that I sort of prefer on tour is the broom flying in from the wings before defying gravity rather that being passed up wiggling from the orchestra pit. Although, Elphaba and Glinda coming in from the pit is also a nice touch on Broadway rather than just walking on, so its a tit for tat for me, I just think the broomstick in the pit looks kinda silly.

Another nice little touch on Broadway are the poppies popping up from the stage deck.

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