Wicked (musical) in the context of "List of the longest-running West End shows"

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.

Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies, which emerged in Britain, and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at the turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond the revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of the best-known musicals through the decades that followed includeMy Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015).

This is a list of Broadway shows with 1,000 or more performances, sorted by number of performances. Twelve shows currently running on Broadway have at least 1,000 performances: the 1996 revival of Chicago, The Lion King, Wicked, The Book of Mormon, Aladdin, Hamilton, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Hadestown, Moulin Rouge!, Six, MJ the Musical, and & Juliet.

Stephen Lawrence Schwartz (born March 6, 1948) is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. In a career spanning over five decades, Schwartz has written hit musicals including Godspell (1971), Pippin (1972), and Wicked (2003). He has contributed lyrics to successful films including Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Prince of Egypt (1998, music and lyrics), Enchanted (2007), Disenchanted (2022), the two-part adaptation of Wicked (2024–2025, music and lyrics).

Schwartz has earned numerous accolades including three Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. He has received nominations for six Tony Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. He received the Tony Award's Isabelle Stevenson Award in 2015.

Winnie Holzman is an American playwright, screenwriter, actress, and producer. She is best known for writing the script of the Tony Award winning Broadway musical Wicked, and for co-writing the screenplays for the two films based on the musical, Wicked and Wicked: For Good. She also created the television series My So-Called Life. Holzman's other television work includes the series Thirtysomething and Once and Again. Her other stage work includes short plays (in which she appeared with her actor husband, Paul Dooley) and the full-length drama, Choice.

Gregory Maguire (born June 9, 1954) is an American novelist. He is the author of Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and several dozen other novels for adults and children. Many of Maguire's adult novels are inspired by classic children's stories. Maguire published his first novel, The Lightning Time, in 1978. Wicked, published in 1995, was his first novel for adults. It was adapted into a popular Broadway musical in 2003, which was later adapted into a two-part musical film series with the first film released in 2024 and the second film released in 2025.

Elphaba Thropp (/ˈɛlfəbə ˈθrɒp/ ) is a fictional character created by Gregory Maguire as the protagonist of his 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. She also appears in the novel's musical theatre adaptation, as well as the musical's two-part film adaptation, Wicked (2024) and Wicked: For Good (2025).

Elphaba is a reimagining of the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In Baum's novel, the Witch is unnamed and little is explained about her life; Maguire's Wicked creates a backstory for her and explores events in the Land of Oz through her perspective. Elphaba's name was formulated from the pronunciation of Baum's initials ("L.F.B."), while her appearance was modeled after Margaret Hamilton's portrayal of the Witch in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz: green-skinned, clad entirely in black, and wearing a tall peaked hat.

The Wicked Witch of the West is a character in the classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by the American author L. Frank Baum, who is the evil ruler of the Winkie Country, the western region in the Land of Oz. She is inadvertently killed by the child Dorothy Gale with a bucket of water. In Baum's subsequent Oz novels, the Wicked Witch of the West is referred to occasionally.

Margaret Hamilton played the role of the witch in the classic 1939 film based on Baum's novel. Hamilton's characterization introduced green skin, a feature repeated in later literary and dramatic representations, including Gregory Maguire's 1995 revisionist novel Wicked (as well as the novel's 2003 stage musical adaptation and subsequent two-part film adaptation), the 2013 film Oz the Great and Powerful, and the television series Once Upon a Time.