"Quite frankly, those other shows weren't much in the running before," he said. "Wicked feels very much in the running." Asked why Wicked seems to have such wide appeal among theatre audiences, he opined, "I think what it is is the story. People are interested in knowing about the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch before they became wicked and good. It's great to have such a broad audience."

Stone is currently preparing to launch the first national tour of Wicked, which he said would be somewhat smaller in physical scale than the production currently inhabiting the Gershwin Theatre. "There are things, obviously, that are not going to get on the road exactly as they are on Broadway," he explained. "The set features in front of the proscenium may not. But everything involved in the story, the storytelling elements, will all be there. I'd say it would be hard to tell the difference between the two."

Stone is setting aside plenty of time to make sure the touring and Broadway productions enjoy continued success. "I've cleared my schedule. Margo Lion, the producer of Hairspray, told me to do it. And Barry and Fran Weissler did it with Chicago. You just clear your schedule for a while and do the tour and the London production. No other small Off-Broadway production. Nothing."