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Music was needed element to stage 'Wicked'
DREAM
Platt: Hethought 'Wicked' would be a great movie, but nothing worked.
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
Published: 7/19/2009 2:22 AM
Last Modified: 7/19/2009 4:39 AM
As a studio executive and independent producer, Marc E. Platt has been responsible for bringing to theaters films as diverse and successful as "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Jerry Maguire," "Legally Blonde" and "Philadelphia."
Yet for years there was one dream that Platt never achieved — that of being the producer of a Broadway musical.
"When I was in college, I staged some musicals and I thought that was what I was going to do — that I'd work my way up to Broadway," Platt said, speaking by phone from his Los Angeles office. "And even when I was working in Hollywood, I was always thinking about getting back to Broadway."
The vehicle that helped Platt make that journey was a novel by Gregory Maguire called "Wicked," which told the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West from "The Wizard of Oz" ended up the way she did.
"I was head of production at Universal at the time, and I was convinced that 'Wicked' would make a great movie," he said. "And we spent years trying to develop a screenplay, but nothing really worked."
Then, by chance, Platt got a call for composer Stephen Schwartz, whose work included the musicals "Pippin" and "Godspell."
"Stephen asked me, 'Have you ever thought about making "Wicked" as a musical?'
" Platt recalled. "And instantly I realized that was the missing element. This was a world and characters that needed to be musicalized."
So began the process by which Maguire's cult-classic novel became the international stage hit "Wicked." Platt worked closely with Schwartz and writer Winnie Holzman (best known for creating the TV series "My So-called Life") in developing the story the musical version of "Wicked" would tell.
"I've always considered myself a storyteller first and foremost," Platt said. "And what appealed to me about 'Wicked' was that it was a retelling of a classic story through the eyes of an unlikely heroine. What if everything we thought we knew about these very familiar characters was wrong?"
Platt said that one of the main goals in turning "Wicked" into a musical was to create a show producers like to call "an 8 to 80."
"That means a show that works on so many different levels it appeals to the broadest possible demographic," he said. "So we used the novel as a starting point, rather than try to make a literally translation of the book to the stage."
Thus was born the emphasis on the friendship between the young women who will become Glinda the Good Witch (a role created for Broken Arrow native Kristin Chenoweth and played in the Tulsa production by Helene Yorke) and the Wicked Witch of the West (Marcie Dodd).
"The show is a full meal — there's magic, spectacle, lots of things flying through the air, tuneful music and lots of comedy," Platt said.
"But underlying all this is a very adult story about the nature of good and evil, and the way history and politics tends to label people who are seen as outsiders as good or evil," he said. "It also looks at the nature of leadership, and how people in power keep that power — if it's through manipulation and fear, or if it's because this leader has the people's best interests at heart."
The success of "Wicked" led Platt to do more theatrical work, including the recent, well-received revival of the musical "Pal Joey" and the Matthew Bourne dance-theater work "Edward Scissorhands." He's also produced the soon-to-be released film version of the musical "Nine," based on Fellini's classic film "8 1/2."
And in the works in a film version of "Wicked" — the musical version, that is.
James D. Watts Jr. 581-8478
james.watts@tulsaworld.com
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
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