Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 14 years and 2 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

We went and saw “Wicked” this afternoon at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, using tickets we purchased about five months ago. It’s an incredible show and I highly recommend you see it if you have the chance!

This was the third time for me (once on Broadway with the original cast, here in Tampa during the first tour in 2007, and now again in 2010) but the first time my daughter had seen it, and she absolutely loved it. She’s actually falling asleep in her room right now listening to the soundtrack. 😉 She had read “The Wizard of Oz” (but actually hasn’t seen the movie) so it was fun to watch her put the pieces together as the story of Elphaba and Glinda unfolded on stage. I bought her the novel on which the musical is based (Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West“) a few months ago, but strangely she never got around to finishing it … I’ll be she does now, and I’d like to read it myself once I catch up on my current backlog.

This was the matinee show so a few of the understudies were performing the main parts. I guess I’m a little spoiled because after seeing Edina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth belt out “Defying Gravity” on Broadway, the traveling company just didn’t pack the same punch. Not that they weren’t good! Here’s a funny note: Richard Kline is playing the role of the Wizard. I wouldn’t have recognized him except the playbill specifically mentioned he “is best known as Jack Tripper’s best friend, Larry Dallas on the classic sitcom ‘Three’s Company.'” That’s right, this guy is currently the Wizard of Oz. 😀