Last Saturday, Stephen Schwartz came to visit Ft. Lauderdale for a “Wickedwell” Weekend with the Lovewell Institute led by Dr. David Spangler. A five hundred plus room was almost filled to capacity with people of all ages, excited to hear what lyricist/composer, Schwartz had to say. “This is an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most of these kids. I was, myself, amazed that they were able to pull this off”, said one staff member of Lovewell.
Lovewell is an institute designed to teach students how to write their own full scale musicals. Through three weeks of workshops and hard work, kids get together and create musicals, based on events that are important in their own lives.
Schwartz, the creator of such hits as Wicked, Godspell, Pippen and other Broadway hits, as well as writing music for Disney movies, spoke of how he created music and sat down for a question and answer session with the audience. After the conference, Stephen Schwartz was nice enough to sit down with 5 Minutes to Curtain and answer a few questions.
5MTC- I’m wondering if you can tell me, from a lyricists and songwriter’s perspective, what is Wicked about?
SS- Wicked is about two girls, who diverge in terms of what they become in life. One becomes the most hated villain in all of OZ, where she is from, and she becomes know as the Wicked Witch of the West and the other becomes a beloved Glinda the Good. But they start out as reluctant roommates in college and it’s basically about their relationship and how they affect one another and about the fact that appearances can be deceiving.
5MTC- How did you find out about Wicked and how did you become involved?
SS- I found about it from a friend while we were on a snorkeling trip in Hawaii and on the way back from snorkeling she said very casually, “Oh, I’m reading this really interesting book called Wicked, by Gregory Maguire and it’s the OZ story from the Wicked Witch’s point of view” and I found that a brilliant idea.
5MTC- Now, I just finished reading the book for the second time two days, ago and finding that it’s an extremely political, almost an adult book for the sense of view of their ideas. What ideas did you and Winnie Holzman come up with to try to make that more into a family musical but still getting the same points around?
SS- Well, we didn’t try to make it into a family musical, we just wrote the story we wanted to tell. But we did want to keep Gregory’s vision in terms of the political overtones and the social overtones and we hope that we succeeded in doing that but we had our own story that we wanted to tell so we sort of changed a lot of his story.
5MTC- Now, I was reading your website and reading your forum and I a lot of people and I know you mentioned this during your conference about the movie with Universal. Now I know you know a lot of people are looking for the musical version of the movie, but I saw, and I don’t know if it was you that was directly quoted or not, but it said that you didn’t know if it was going to do well because it was in a fantastical atmosphere.
SS- No, I think it will work well as a movie. There were reasons why I thought it was not a good idea to adapt the book directly as a movie in particularly as a non-musical movie and those reasons proved persuasive to the executives at Universal, but now, that the show exists and is known, I think that the movie version of the show could work very well if it is done well and we are beginning to talk about it and I would not be very surprised if 5 or 6 years from now, the movie comes out.
5MTC-Ok, as I mentioned before the interview, unfortunately with the economy these days it’s very hard for young kids to go see a stage show or anything like that. What are your ideas and praises about Broadway shows becoming movies and movies becoming Broadway shows? Do you think that’s helping kids become involved and what would you like to see happen with movies?
SS- Well, I think it’s always good for the musical form and genre when it’s done in any form, whether it’s theatre or film or whatever but I have to say that I don’t think you can really beat live theatre for musicals and you know I’m certainly not a fan of the ticket prices though I understand why they are what they are. First of all, Broadway musicals try to make inexpensive tickets available in various ways. I know in Wicked, we have a lottery every night where tickets are $25 and admittedly people have to win the lottery, which people do. And then of course, you don’t have to see a show on Broadway. You can see a show in a school or community theatre or whatever.
5MTC- And for the last question, it’s a question I always ask everybody, any advice for any kids that want to be involved in Broadway.
SS- Well, I said this in the conference, that I think there are several things to do, but it requires perseverance and willingness to go down some blind alleys, but I think you go where they are doing the kind of work that you want to be doing and you try to get some training so you can get your best foot forward and then you keep on knocking on doors and learn the ropes and eventually it leads somewhere.
We, at 5 Minutes to Curtain would like to thank Stephen Schwartz for taking time out of his day to sit down with us and talk. Wicked will be playing at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts until April 6th, 2008. For more information, please visit www.browardcenter.org or www.5minstocurtain.com. For more information on the Lovewell Institute, please visit www.lovewell.org
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