Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth will return to Broadway in the new Stephen Schwartz musical Wicked next year. According to Chenoweth's official website, the singer-actress will open in the musical about the early life of the Wicked Witch of the West on Halloween 2003. This will mark Chenoweth's first Broadway musical outing since her Tony winning run in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. (She did appear in the short-lived Broadway comedy Epic Proportions in 1999.)

Chenoweth took part in a reading of the musical in 2001 playing Glinda, the Good Witch from "The Wizard of Oz." The musical is based on Gregory Maguire's novel and features a score by Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. That reading also starred Rent's Idina Menzel as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. The world premiere production of Wicked will take place at San Francisco's Curran Theatre in spring 2003. No casting has been announced yet for that production.

Kristin Chenoweth made her New York theatrical debut opposite Bill Irwin in a production of Molière's Scapin and followed that with a lead role in Kander and Ebb's Steel Pier, which earned the actress a Theatre World Award. Roles in A New Brain and the City Center Encores! Strike Up the Band ensued, and in 1998 she portrayed Sally in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, nabbing Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for her performance. She starred in her own, short-lived TV series "Kristin," and her other TV appearances include roles in "Frasier" and ABC's television adaptation of the musical Annie. She will also be featured in the upcoming TV production of Meredith Willson's The Music Man.