Saw the pre-Broadway production of the Stephen Schwartz musical Wicked last night and found myself thoroughly charmed by the piece. The story, based on Gregory Maguire’s cleverly-written novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is a sort of “prequel” and backstory to the movie classic The Wizard of Oz, and reveals just how appearances can be deceiving, and how both choice and circumstance shape destiny… I think what most appeals to me about it is how it shows—albeit in a fictitious context—that even “villains” have a story to tell, to which we can be sympathetic. I may be a bit overly sentimental but a couple of Elphaba’s (the Wicked Witch herself) numbers had me fighting to keep a dry eye.