By Andrew Gans
15 Aug 2007

Victoria Matlock as Elphaba in the national tour of Wicked.
photo by Joan Marcus

The national tour of Wicked, which currently features Victoria Matlock as the green-faced Elphaba and Christina DeCicco as the curly locked Glinda, plays performance number 1,000 Aug. 15.

The hit Stephen Schwartz-Winnie Holzman musical is currently playing the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, PA, through Sept. 9.

The Wicked tour launched at Toronto's Canon Theatre in March 2005. Since that time over 2.65 million people have seen the production in engagements in such cities as Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C.

The touring company also features Barbara Tirrell as Madame Morrible and P.J. Benjamin as The Wizard.

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.

Wicked can also be seen in New York at the Gershwin Theatre, in Los Angeles at the Pantages Theatre, in Chicago at the Ford Center's Oriental Theatre, in London at the Apollo Victoria Theatre and in Tokyo, Japan. A German-language production of Wicked will open in Stuttgart Nov. 15; the Australian production will begin in Melbourne July 12, 2008.

For more information about Wicked visit www.wickedthemusicaltour.com.