Ana Gasteyer Flies Into Broadway's Wicked Oct. 10
By Andrew Gans
10 Oct 2006
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Ana Gasteyer brings her Elphaba to New York.
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| photo by Joan Marcus | Ana Gasteyer, who created the role of Elphaba for Chicago's sit-down production of Wicked, reprises the role of the misunderstood witch at Broadway's Gershwin Theatre beginning Oct. 10.
Gasteyer will play a 13-week limited engagement as the green-faced witch in the hit Stephen Schwartz-Winnie Holzman musical. She will stay with the production through Jan. 7, 2007.
Gasteyer is the fourth actress to don green make-up for the New York cast, following the Elphabas of Idina Menzel, who created the role to Tony-winning effect; Shoshana Bean; and, most recently, the former star of Brooklyn, Eden Espinosa. Espinosa played her final performance as Broadway's Elphaba Oct. 8.
Best known for her work on "Saturday Night Live," Ana Gasteyer has appeared on Broadway in The Threepenny Opera and The Rocky Horror Show and Off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues and Kimberly Akimbo. She also played Fanny Brice in the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera's production of Funny Girl and was seen in the New York City Opera mounting of Cinderella. Her screen credits include "Reefer Madness," "Mean Girls," "What Women Want," "Woman on Top," "Dick" and "What's the Worst That Could Happen?"
Wicked currently stars Kate Reinders (Glinda), David Garrison (the Wizard), Carol Kane (Madame Morrible), Derrick Williams (Fiyero), Jenna Leigh Green (Nessarose), Logan Lipton (Boq) and Steven Skybell (Dr. Dillamond).
With a score by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman, Wicked began previews on Broadway Oct. 8, 2003, after a summer tryout at San Francisco's Curran Theatre.
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.
The Broadway company, directed by Joe Mantello, plays the Gershwin Theatre. Tickets are available by calling (212) 307-4100 or by visiting www.ticketmaster.com.
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