After watching wicked tonight, I fell into the dark hole of watching wicked curtain call videos on youtube and I noticed something. On almost half of them the actor playing the wizard bowed before Fieyro.
However, watching it live tonight Fieryo bowed before the wizard and the actor playing Fieyro bowed first on the other half of videos.
Is there a set order for them? Or is it whoever is ready first between the two to bow?
I don't know how it is determined who goes first, but I do know that I used to kinda fuss about how Fiyero should bow AFTER the wizard and now he does (at least on the second national tour). I'm not sure what changed, but I'm not sad about it at all.
The Wizard bowing right before the witches is a remnant of when Joel Grey, George Hearn, Ben Vereen, and other “Broadway legends” with some name recognition played the role. I assumed they just never restaged it, though it sounds like it’s changing now.
The bigger the name, the later they are to take their bows. That’s why the lead(s) take the last bows at the curtain call and the ensemble take their bows first.
If leads are equal in star billing, they generally share their bows together: LuPone & Ebersole in WAR PAINT, Hayes & Chenoweth in PROMISES, PROMISES, etc.
They swapped the order of Fiyero and the Wizard last year. I think they always did it the new way in some international productions, but the US ones started doing it last year, possibly after some cast changes.
No idea why after so long they'd change it, but speaking from personal experience, everytime I've been Fiyero gets by far the biggest cheer (behind the main two obviously) but then the Wizard would follow him out and the cheer seemed tepid in comparison, so for me it's good that they change it because I always felt a little sorry for the Wizard.
joined:6/19/17
joined:
6/19/17
Posted: 7/20/18 at 3:05am