The main purpose of my trip was just to see the Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz entitled Wicked, whose soundtrack I heard way back in 2006. It is a side story to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and is directly based from Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, The Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion are not the main characters of the narrative but instead it is about the friendship of the Wicked Witch of the East (Elphaba) and the Good Witch of the North (Galinda). The musical had a long run in Broadway, had a west coast tour (San Francisco) and a few of its songs like ‘Defying Gravity’ and ‘For Good’ became more popular in the pop mainstream scene as they were recently remade in the hit musical tv show Glee. I’ve loved the music for so long but it has finished its run in the US so when I heard that it’s gonna be staged in SG in December I got really excited! I don’t need a visa, I can book budget fares through Cebu Pacific, it’s showing after my birthday, and it’ll be a way for me to visit my good friend J! Voila, there I was, giddy, walking around the huge Marina Bay Sands mall. My show was at 1:30 p.m., so we stopped by the food court for a quick lunch.

Promo tarp

http://wickedthemusical.com.sg

Ain't it huge?

Narnia exhibit!

I didn’t go in because I didn’t have enough time to look around. It’s not a walled exhibit anyways, and from where we were seated eating our lunch I could already view the stuff they displayed and used for the movie franchise.

My lunch

J's lunch

The stage!

Long story short: my throat hurt so much from stopping the tears from falling during the first half of the musical. The Australian cast is doing this tour and they were AMAZING. I was breathless from the very moment the orchestra started playing a few bars of the first song ‘No One Mourns the Wicked’ to the show-stopping ‘Defying Gravity’ before intermission. Their speaking voices sounded like the original cast (Idina Menzel as Elphie & Kristen Chenoweth as Glinda), but their singing voices varied a bit, especially with Elphaba. Jemma Rix, the Aussie actress’s notes were perfect and fluid, but I wished her delivery had more of the raw, edgy grit of Idina (who won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for this, by the way). Suzie Mathers, on the other hand, was spectacularly funny and giddy as Glinda that she seemed like she got high on something!

A blogger friend happened to be there on the same show, and I finally met Mela in person during the intermission. We’ve been following each other’s blogs since way back when (I forgot), and it was such a pleasure to meet a friend through blogging!

Our mirror image :)

LED posters :)

Totoro waiting for the 2nd half to resume :)

Second Act snapshot

Closing song

Curtain call

I hope they don’t kill me if they discover this blog and see that I stubbornly took a few pictures towards the end of the show. I didn’t use any flash to blind the cast and I was too far up to be noticed, hahaha. I felt sad that the show ended. Mela and I walked around MBS and saw that there are costumes on display outside the theatre.

Look at the details!

Would you wear green boots?

Another green gown

Mela and I parted ways soon after walking around and promised to try see each other again back in Manila. I met up again with J & JM and resumed our photowalk by the river and the Helix Bridge.

Funny!

Jay & I in front of LV 'island'

An airplane without wings

The Singapore Flyer

Was not able to go to the roofdeck of MBS nor ride the Singapore Flyer. Maybe for another time. We were already tired and hungry from all the walking and decided to go back to Orchard Road. Next up: Clarke Quay!

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