Book excerpt: "Defying Gravity," a biography of "Wicked" composer Stephen Schwartz

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In "Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked" (published by Applause Books), biographer Carol de Giere explores the beingness and enactment of the Grammy- and Oscar-winning composer of treasured Broadway and movie hits.

Read an excerpt below, successful which Schwartz finds the inspiration of what volition go his astir palmy philharmonic accumulation to date, erstwhile helium discovers Gregory Maguire's prequel to L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" – the genesis of "Wicked."

And don't miss Mo Rocca's interrogation with Stephen Schwartz connected "CBS Sunday Morning" November 16!

"Defying Gravity" by Carol de Giere

Landing successful Oz

"It's clip to spot my instincts, adjacent my eyes and leap!" —Wicked

At the commencement of 1996, Stephen Schwartz ne'er imagined helium would extremity the twelvemonth envisioning his adjacent Broadway musical, Wicked. Movie songwriting seemed to beryllium his future, particularly aft 1 eventful evening successful March. He donned his newly-purchased achromatic tuxedo and achromatic silk formal shirt, strode crossed the reddish carpet, and met up with his Pocahontas penning spouse Alan Menken astatine Los Angeles' Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. For forty-eight-year-old Schwartz, being nominated for an Academy Award was a invited twist connected his puerility imagination of penning musicals for the stage. With his parents and woman successful the audience, helium waited for the announcement.

"And the Oscar for Best Original Musical oregon Comedy Score goes to…" An expectant soundlessness settled successful the hallway portion presenter Quincy Jones opened the envelope.

"Alan Menken, philharmonic and orchestral score, and Stephen Schwartz, lyrics, for Pocahontas." Applause burst retired portion the brace made their mode to the stage. As Menken thanked their Pocahontas euphony team, Schwartz clutched his aureate statuette and smiled, looking down astatine Mel Gibson successful the beforehand enactment making comic faces astatine him and soaking successful the acknowledgment from Hollywood. That evening helium and Menken besides stepped up to judge the grant for Best Original Song, "Colors of the Wind."

Back location successful Connecticut, helium placed his gold-plated statuettes beside his Grammy gramophones successful a trophy lawsuit converted from an aquarium that his kids nary longer used.

The remainder of the twelvemonth was a engaged one, with the premiere of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and aboriginal enactment connected The Prince of Egypt involving meetings with the DreamWorks squad and the penning and demo-ing of songs. He was besides moving connected an aboriginal accumulation of a revue philharmonic Snapshots successful Seattle, assured that erstwhile yet finished, the amusement would spell nonstop to banal and amateur licensing alternatively than to a commercialized production. The 1 happening helium was emphatically not doing was readying thing caller for Broadway.

Then towards the extremity of the year, a telephone telephone came that would alteration everything. He was successful Los Angeles finishing immoderate enactment connected The Prince of Egypt erstwhile his long-time buddy, songwriter John Bucchino, called him from the land of Maui successful Hawaii. Singer-songwriter Holly Near had hired Bucchino arsenic a soft accompanist for her performances astatine a league astatine the tropical getaway. Once connected Maui, Bucchino decided it was excessively bully not to share. His country included an other bed, and helium had a car and escaped food. "If you tin currency successful immoderate predominant flyer miles and travel for the weekend, you'll person a escaped abrogation successful Hawaii," Bucchino offered.

"Why not?" thought Schwartz. He had the play free, and aft all, it was Hawaii. "I americium so there," came Schwartz's reply from LA, and by December 16th, helium was.

When Bucchino and Near had a artifact of clip distant from the stage, they organized a snorkeling escapade with Schwartz and Near's friend, Pat Hunt. A tiny vessel sped them implicit to Molikini, a mostly submerged volcanic crater fashionable for its rainbow dispersed of oversea creatures that delight snorkelers.

On the travel back, Holly casually mentioned to Stephen, "I'm speechmaking this truly absorbing publication called Wicked, by Gregory Maguire."

The novel's rubric sounded intriguing. "I deliberation I've heard of it. What's it about?" helium inquired.

"It's the Oz communicative from the Wicked Witch of the West's constituent of view."

In an instant, Schwartz's imaginativeness flashed done the implications of a backstory for The Wizard of Oz told from the position of the unpopular witch. His absorption was visceral: "All the hairs connected my arms stood connected end," helium recalls. "I thought it was the champion thought for a philharmonic I had ever heard."

As soon arsenic helium returned to his LA apartment, helium called his lawyer successful New York, inquiring astir Maguire's 1995 caller Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. "Okay, this publication has been retired for a while, truthful idiosyncratic has the rights. I request you to find retired who has them. Meanwhile, I'm going to get the publication and work it, due to the fact that I deliberation I person to bash this."

There was nary mode astir it. This was a Broadway conception not suited to a small-budget theatre company. And helium knew it was a highly theatrical idea, not 1 meant for movie oregon television. Although helium had firmly decided, so pledged, ne'er to enactment connected Broadway again, his instincts didn't permission him a choice.

But with specified a fashionable novel, surely idiosyncratic successful Hollywood was converting it to the metallic screen. Schwartz would person to halt them, and someway animate the rights holders to see alternatively the risky, expensive, and time-consuming task of producing a philharmonic successful New York City.

While his attorney, Nancy Rose, followed clues connected the rights trail, Wicked's prospective composer-lyricist work the caller and confirmed that his hunch had been right: musicalizing the Wicked Witch's communicative seemed "quintessentially an thought for me," meaningful capable to beryllium worthy the imaginable struggle.

For 1 thing, helium loved looking astatine accepted stories from a caller angle. When helium was successful assemblage helium saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard's play successful which 2 insignificant characters successful Shakespeare's Hamlet are made the cardinal characters. "It was a revelation to me," helium recalls. "From that constituent on, the thought of looking astatine acquainted worldly from an unfamiliar constituent of presumption became a extremity for my ain work." Godspell had approached the New Testament successful a caller way, Children of Eden reworked Genesis for a caller instrumentality connected household life, and The Prince of Egypt explored the Exodus communicative from the standpoint of the member narration betwixt Moses and Ramses. But Gregory Maguire's twist connected The Wizard of Oz was a accidental to bash thing much straight similar the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern concept. "I recognized instantly that this was a genius thought and that it was an thought for me: the mode it took a acquainted taxable and spun it," Schwartz recalls.

Wicked besides felt inherently philharmonic to him. "Elphaba is simply a precise philharmonic quality with large emotions. She is fantastical. The satellite is fantastical. Glinda is precise musical." To him it was wide that the satellite of philharmonic theatre was wherever the communicative belonged.

And past determination was the quality Maguire's imaginativeness had moved to the halfway of the story: Elphaba, the quirky and misunderstood greenish miss who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Maguire named her aft L. Frank Baum, who penned The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, erstwhile helium pondered the dependable of the author's initials "eL" "Fa" "Ba." Elphaba's communicative seemed adjacent to Schwartz's ain affectional experience. He knew what it felt similar to beryllium "green" and what interior resources are needed to transportation connected with life. "The thought of the communicative created a sympathetic resonance successful me," Schwartz affirms, "and I cognize that I'm not alone. Anyone who is an creator successful our nine is going to place with Elphaba. Anyone who is of an taste minority, who is achromatic oregon Jewish oregon gay, oregon a pistillate feeling she grew up successful a man's world, oregon anyone who grew up feeling a dissonance betwixt who they are wrong and the satellite astir them, volition place with Elphaba. Since that's truthful galore of us, I deliberation determination volition beryllium a batch of radical who will."

"There were things that I knew close away. I knew however it was going to begin, I knew however it was going to end, I knew who Elphaba was, and I knew why— connected immoderate unusual level—this was autobiographical adjacent though it was astir a greenish miss successful Oz." —Stephen Schwartz

Schwartz bought a spiral notebook successful which helium would seizure each his communicative and lyric ideas—snatches of inspiration, probe notes, lists of rhyming words, archetypal drafts of lyric lines, and aboriginal drafts. On the achromatic cover, the manufacturer's slogan, "Five Star—In a Class By Itself," hinted astatine what would go of the philharmonic that began arsenic penciled scrawls connected the lined pages.

Maguire had created, arsenic the writer himself described it, a dense, astir nineteenth-century-type caller that takes spot implicit thirty-eight years and has thirty-eight speaking parts. Could immoderate radical of philharmonic collaborators successfully distill these ingredients into a viable evening of theater?

From "Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked (second edition)" by Carol de Giere. © 2018 by Carol de Giere. Published by Applause Books. Reprinted by permission.

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