Laura Benanti Wicked?

[lightsarebrightonbroadway]

Posted: 5/31/19 at 12:59pm

Just wondering if Laura has ever mentioned or discussed if she's ever auditioned for the show? Almost every musical theatre actor has and considering she was still starting out and the right age by the time Chenoweth left I can't help but wonder if she auditioned and if so how far she got. I feel as though she would be a great Glinda!

[Bell0708]

Posted: 5/31/19 at 11:27pm

She broke her neck doing "Into the Woods" about 2 years before Wicked opened, but it took her a while to recover.  Glinda's not the most strenuous role physically, but there are a lot of stairs she would have to navigate, which I personally would not want to deal with potentially getting hurt again.  I see her more as an Elphaba, which she definitely wouldn't able to do, I don't think.  Just speculating though.

[singer234]

Posted: 5/31/19 at 11:44pm

Also, right around the time she would have replaced was around when the Wedding Singer was being developed.

[Plannietink08]

Posted: 6/1/19 at 6:54am

Interesting thread; what other successful performers unsuccessfully auditioned for Wicked?

[NOWaWarning]

Posted: 6/1/19 at 9:21am

Well Kelli O’Hara had several callbacks to be the original Nessarose.

Sara Ramirez was one of the ladies who auditioned to originate Elphaba along with Idina, SJB (who had been doing the early readings), Ana Gastayer, and Julia Murney.

Anneliese van der Pol had several callbacks to be Glinda a little while ago.

I can’t find anything to back this up, but I feel like I read somewhere that Christiane Noll auditioned to replace Kristin Chenoweth along with JLT and Hilty, but I might be making that up.

Updated On: 5/16/23 at 09:21 AM

[Plannietink08]

Posted: 6/9/19 at 4:27pm

NOWaWarning said: "Well Kelli O’Hara has several callbacks to be the original Nessarose.

Sara Ramirez was one of the ladies who auditioned to originate Elphaba along with Idina, SJB (who had been doing the workshops), Ana Gastayer, and Julia Murney.

Anneliese van der Pol had several callbacks to be a Glinda a little while ago.

I can’t find anything to back this up, but I feel like I read somewhere that Christiane Noll auditioned to replace Kristin Chenoweth along with JLT and Hilty, but I might be making that up."

 

I’d love to hear Sara Ramirez sing that score!

 

[Zion24]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 12:33am

i know Shayna Steele auditioned and didnt get a callback which is just plain insane. 

i had heard Stephanie J Block was developing the show and was set to take it to San Fran and Broadway but the producers fell in love with Idina. 

i had never heard Kelli Ohara was in that mix at all though! Source?

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 12:44am

had heard Stephanie J Block was developing the show and was set to take it to San Fran and Broadway but the producers fell in love with Idina.

Stephanie was part of the pre-Broadway San Francisco cast of WICKED but didn’t join the cast to Broadway as she left the show in order to play Liza Minnelli opposite Hugh Jackman in THE BOY FROM OZ.  

[Plannietink08]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 3:01am

I had never heard Kelli Ohara was in that mix at all though! Source?"

Kelli has said in interviews how she narrowly missed out on playing Nessarose. 

[NOWaWarning]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 3:19am

I had never heard Kelli Ohara was in that mix at all though! Source?

Specifically, she mentioned it in her Show People interview a couple of years ago.

 

[Wick3]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 1:47pm

yup Kelli stated she had 8 callbacks for Wicked back in the day. Jump to 14:00 in the youtube video:

 

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 4:18pm

I remember Michael Cole (or Stephen Cole), who is/was? Stephen Schwartz's personal assistant mention that Sutton Foster was playing either Pfanee  or Shenshen in workshops/readings of Wicked. The role of Glinda's friends weren't much larger than what they are now, but they did keep their names from the original book. 

[SFFrontRow]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 5:09pm

BrodyFosse123 said: "had heard Stephanie J Block was developing the show and was set to take it to San Fran and Broadway but the producers fell in love with Idina.

Stephanie was part of the pre-Broadway San Francisco cast of WICKED but didn’t join the cast to Broadway as she left the show in order to play Liza Minnelli opposite Hugh Jackman in THE BOY FROM OZ."

Um, I saw the pre-Broadway SF run, and before it opened, and Idina was Ephalba. I just found a Wicked wiki site that says she understudied Ephalba in SF but was replaced on way to Broadway by Shoshana Bean.

And Anna Gasteyer as Ephalba still confuses me. I know she did the original Chicago run and was quite popular in it, but..... she just seemed older than the character.

[JBradshaw]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 5:43pm

Block was the standby in San Fran. Didn’t she go on once?

When it came to Broadway Eden Espinosa was the original Elphaba standby - my first time seeing the show was actually Edens first time on.
Shoshana took over as standby after Eden left for “Brooklyn”

[SchuylWERKsister]

Posted: 6/12/19 at 3:35pm

JBradshaw said: "Block was the standby in San Fran. Didn’t she go on once?

When it came to Broadway Eden Espinosa was the original Elphaba standby - my first time seeing the show was actually Edens first time on.
Shoshana took over as standby after Eden left for “Brooklyn”"

She was the understudy. There are pictures of Stephanie J. Block in her ensemble costume from SF. There was no standby in SF.