As previously reported, Harriet Thorpe will become the new Madame Morrible April 14, and June 9 will welcome Alexia Khadime as Elphaba and Desmond Barrit as The Wizard.

June 9 will also see the arrival as Jeremy Legat as Boq and the ascension of ensemble member Caroline Keiff into the role of Nessarose. Ashleigh Gray will become the standby for the green-faced Elphaba that day as well.

Current cast members Dianne Pilkington (Glinda), Oliver Tompsett (Fiyero), Andy Mace (Doctor Dillamond) and Sarah Earnshaw (standby for Glinda) have all extended their contracts.

Kerry Ellis (Elphaba), Nigel Planer (The Wizard), James Gillan (Boq) and Katie Rowley Jones (Nessarose) will play their final performances June 7. Ellis, who will soon be seen as Elphaba in the Broadway company of Wicked (she makes her Main Stem bow June 17), will return to the London cast Dec. 1.

A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Jeremy Legat was seen in Oliver! at the London Palladium and the tour of Peter Pan. His theatre credits also include productions of Growing Pains, The Proposal, Billy Liar, My Fair Lady, The Crucible, La Cage aux Folles, Our Day Out, Cabaret and Cold Comfort Farm. Wicked features a score by Stephen Schwartz, a book by Winnie Holzman, direction by Joe Mantello and musical staging by Wayne Cilento. The creative team also includes scenic design by Eugene Lee, costume design by Susan Hilferty, lighting design by Kenneth Posner, sound design by Tony Meola, projections by Elaine J. McCarthy, wig and hair design by Tom Watson, music supervision and arrangements by Stephen Oremus, orchestrations by William David Brohn and dance arrangements by James Lynn Abbott.

Based on Gregory Maguire's novel, which turned every Oz myth inside out, Wicked explores the early life of the witches of Oz: Glinda and Elphaba. The two main characters meet at Shiz, a school where both hope to take up sorcery. Glinda is madly popular and Elphaba is, well, green. By a misunderstanding, they wind up roommates and, after an initial period of mutual loathing, begin to learn something about each other. Their life paths continue to intersect through a shared love, entry into the Emerald City and interaction with the Wizard himself. Eventually, their choices and convictions take them on widely different paths.

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