I blogged about 6 months ago about seeing the musical “Wicked”.
The musical is based on the book of the same name. The book was interesting but very dry. In fact it was dry enough that there were several times during the reading that I wasn’t sure that I could finish it.
The musical, on the other hand, managed to pull the great pieces from the book along with other inspiration. The book was definitely pulled from the original Oz books and not the movie though the musical also took inspiration, in a humorous way, from the movie as well. The musical was just fun. Not only that, the music was powerful.
Now that I have the CD, I must say that the traveling cast for the musical may actually have better pipes than the original broadway cast did. The traveling cast was just so powerful, emotional and inspirational. The energy in each of the songs was much greater than I’m hearing on the CD. Maybe it’s the difference between studio recording and live performance but…
Anyway, I’d still recommend this musical and the CD to get a taste for the musical. It’s great stuff.