Wicked
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Look. I was a Wicked virgin before this. And no, that doesn’t mean what you think it means.
It means I had never read the book, seen the stage musical, or seen the movie, though I had seen approximately six million versions of the “holding space for the lyrics of Defying Gravity” meme, and Cynthia Erivo’s green-point’d index finger held by Ariana Grande’s spectral hand.
The most I had listened to was Defying Gravity—a stellar song by any measure—over and over. By listen Number One Thousand, I felt that it didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen Wicked; I already knew it in my heart. She defies gravity! She’s not supposed to defy gravity. The musical obviously ends after the song does.
I love being wrong! Not only does that song happen only halfway through the musical, but there are far more disturbing twists revealed throughout the run of the show. If, in your future watchings of The Wizard of Oz, you want to always feel “oh, that’s really weird” about every single character, this is the musical for you.