On May 31st, Wicked will usher in a new Madame Morrible, Wizard and Glinda in the forms of Rue McClanahan, Ben Vereen and Megan Hilty.The three stars respectively replace Carole Shelley, George Hearn and Jennifer Laura Thompson, all of whom played their final performances on May 29th.McClanahan is best known to TV viewers who remember her performances on Maude and as Blanche on The Golden Girls, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1987. Shewas last on Broadway in 2001's The Women opposite Kristen Johnston, Jennifer Tilly, Cynthia Nixon and
Jennifer Coolidge. Previous Broadway appearances include California Suite, Sticks and Bones, Father's Day, and Jimmy Shine. McClanahan has also appeared as the Mother Superior
in the A&E presentation of Nunsense, and will appear this November in Nunsense II.Vereen last appeared on Broadway in the revival of I'm Not Rappaport. Previously to that, he appeared in the Fosse review, a performance which was taped for DVD, and also appeared in Jelly's Last Jam,Sweet Charity, Hair, Grind, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Pippin. It was the latter of those shows, Pippin, also written by Wickedcomposer Stephen Schwartzfor
which he won the Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Actor in the
Musical in 1973. His last New York stage appearance was even more
recent, as "The Ghost of Christmas Present" in the Madison Square
Garden production of A Christmas Carol.
Hilty made her Broadway debut in Wickedas the standby for Glinda. A graduate of Carnegie
Mellon's theatre program, she recently appeared in the new musical Café
Puttanesca at Pittsburgh's City Theatre. Other regional credits include
Suds at Oregon Cabaret Theatre. Currently featured in Wickedare Shoshana Bean as Elphaba, David Ayers as Fiyero, Michelle Federer as
Nessarose, Jeffrey Kuhn as Boq and William Youmans as Doctor Dillamond.Wicked, which features a score by Stephen Schwartz, a book by Winnie Holzman, direction by Joe Mantello and choreography by Wayne Cilento, is currently playing at the Gershwin Theatre (222 W. 51st St.), where it opened on October 30th, 2003. The smash hit adaptation of the Gregory Maguire novel won 3 Tonys, and was nominated in 6 other categories as well. The best-selling cast recording on Decca Broadway won a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album.
