I picked up the book, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, a couple of years ago when my wife and I had our first child, and it was one of those books that I could not put down. Little did I know there was a musical out for it as well.
No, I wasn’t living under a rock…I just honestly didn’t know they made a musical about it. I’m not up to speed on the comings and goings of live theater these days. So after finishing this book, I thought that it really really really needed a visual medium to convey much of what happened in the book.
Oh boy am I just Mr. Lucky. The book, which was originally planned as a movie, is now being written by Erik Jendreson of HBO’s epic miniseries Band of Brothers…and will be most likely airing on ABC after it’s finished being produced by Ventanarosa Productions, a company started by Salma Hayek. The best news for me is that they’re only interested in making the book version into the miniseries…not the musical.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty gay for musicals, but this book worked really well for me as a serious piece of literature that will translate really well into a miniseries. I can’t wait to see what they do with the source material written by Gregory Maguire.
