![]() I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I chose the tour because by that point Wicked was a well-oiled machine and I wanted to get in on the ground floor with Joe Mantello and create something new. But when I finally did get to become my own Elphaba, it was quite fulfilling. You did the national tour and then a long run on Broadway.īlock: Idina was genius, she brought something completely different to it. So when that didn’t come to fruition, it hurt.ĭeadline: But that wasn’t the end of it for you. We really befriended each other and we kept nudging each other with what we thought the future was going to bring. I fell in love with the character, and my final days in the two-week workshop was with Kristin Chenoweth. I understand show business but the heart of an artist never wants to grapple with the business part of it. So when that didn’t come to fruition, it hurt.’īlock: I have no qualms about saying that was a huge kick in the gut. We kept nudging each other with what we thought the future was going to bring. ‘Kristin Chenoweth and I really befriended each other. But then when it came time to cross the finish line, it was Stephen Schwartz who had to pick up the phone and say, “We love you but you have no Broadway credits and I don’t think we can risk a multimillion dollar show on someone who has not been on Broadway, let alone been at the helm of a big Broadway show, so we’d love for you to stand by for Idina.”ĭeadline: That was Idina Menzel, who went on to win the Tony for her performances as the misunderstood Wicked Witch. I had come back from my first foray into New York and was living a comfortable life where I knew my bills would be paid. They were developing it in California, and after all the freebies and basement readings and dinner theater I’d done, my name came to ![]() ![]() Block: Wicked has always been my highest of highs and some of my lowest of lows. We spoke recently about a career that has been full of high peaks – and deep valleys.ĭeadline: You have a longstanding relationship with Elphaba, in Wicked, that didn’t start out as you’d planned. But it all started in 1992, when she played Belle in the Disneyland version of Beauty & The Beast, not far from where she grew up in Orange County, CA. It earned Block her second Tony nomination in 2013, she played the title role in a revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The show – with a score by William Finn and book and direction by James Lapine – is set in 1979, at the beginning of the AIDS crisis and proved to be as poignant in 2017 as it was in 1992, when it was first produced on Broadway. In Falsettos, Block played Trina, whose husband Marvin (Christian Borle) has just announced that he is leaving her and their soon-to-be-a-bar-mitzvah son Jason (Anthony Rosenthal) to move in with Whizzer (Andrew Rannells). Jerome Coopersmith Dies: 'Hawaii Five-O' Writer, Broadway Playwright Was 97Ĭhristian Borle, Brandon Uranowitz, Stephanie J. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |