"WICKED" at Pantages Theatre

A musical worth singing home about. Everyone I'd spoken to about "Wicked," was like, "You gotta go see it; it's amazing!" with an emphasis on the "MA" in "amazing." And it was so many people, I couldn't even be skeptical anymore; I just had to believe them. And wouldn't you guess, they were right!

I've seen "Wicked" twice now, once with my mom, second time with friends, and because I'm a smarty with a slim budget, both times have been for cheap. The trick is the lottery. Arrive at the Pantages Theatre two and an half hours before the show you want to see (2pm matinee on Saturday was my pick both times), and enter your name for the lottery to win enviable orchestra seat tickets for $25 a pop (they usually go for $98 and up). They give away 26 tickets this way (i.e., 13 pairs of tickets, 26 single tickets or some combination therein), and even is you DON'T win, they offer to everyone who tried the same seat selection for half off ($45). Not too shabby, yeah? You can put your names on the lottery, stay to see if you win, pop over to The Waffle for a late brunch, order eggs instead of a waffle, then come back 'round to Pantages and see the show. Of course, that's what we did.

So yeah, "Wicked" was wonderful. The woman who plays Elphaba has a voice like a person who got granted three wishes from a genie and used one of her wishes to obtain an unnaturally spectacular singing voice. Mind-blowingly good. The guy who played Fiyero, on the other hand, despite being the understudy in the original Broadway production, sings like the genie had a hearing problem and interpreted "unnaturally spectacular" as "unnaturally un-tacular." In other words, he sucked. Cringe-worthy. But the rest was great. The sets, the flying/special effects, the lights, the humor, and the audience (it seems to be a consistently packed house), all made for great fun and a happy musical experience.

in five: 4/5
info here: http://www.pantages-theatre.com/