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IN “Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz”, from Godspell To Wicked“ (published by Applause Books), biographer Carole de Jear explores the life and work of the Grammy and Oscar-winning composer of treasured Broadway and film hits.
Read the excerpt below as Schwartz finds inspiration for what will become his most successful musical work to date when he discovers Gregory Maguire's prequel to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—the genesis of the long-running Broadway musical Wicked.
And don't miss Mo Rocky's interview with Stephen Schwartz. “CBS Sunday Morning” November 16th!
“Defying Gravity” by Carole de Gire
Landing in Oz
“It’s time to trust your instincts, close your eyes and jump!” -Wicked
At the beginning of 1996, Stephen Schwartz never imagined he would end the year dreaming of his next Broadway musical. Wicked. Writing songs for films seemed to be his future, especially after one eventful evening in March. He put on his newly purchased black tuxedo and white silk dress shirt, walked down the red carpet and met his girlfriend. Pocahontas writing partner Alan Menken at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. For forty-eight-year-old Schwartz, the Academy Award nomination was a welcome turn in his childhood dream of writing musicals for the stage. He waited with his parents and wife for the announcement.
“And the Oscar for Best Original Score for a Musical or Comedy goes to…” An expectant silence reigned in the room as host Quincy Jones opened the envelope.
“Alan Menken, musical and orchestral scores, and Stephen Schwartz, lyrics, for PocahontasThere was applause as the couple walked onto the stage. When Mencken thanked his Pocahontas music team, Schwartz clutched his gold statuette and smiled, looking at Mel Gibson in the front row, making funny faces at him and soaking up recognition from Hollywood. That evening, he and Menken also accepted the award for Best Original Song for “Colors of the Wind.”
Returning home to Connecticut, he placed his gold-plated figurines next to his Grammys in a trophy case repurposed from an aquarium his children no longer used.
The rest of the year was busy: the premiere The Hunchback of Notre Dame and early work on Prince of Egypt including meetings with the DreamWorks team and writing and demoing songs. He also worked on an early production of the musical revue. Pictures in Seattle, confident that when the show was finally finished, it would go directly to serial and amateur licensing rather than commercial production. The only thing he absolutely did not do was plan anything new for Broadway.
Then, towards the end of the year, I got a phone call that changed everything. He was in Los Angeles finishing up work on Prince of Egypt when his longtime friend, songwriter John Bucchino, called him from Maui, Hawaii. Singer-songwriter Holly Neer hired Bucchino as a piano accompanist for her performances at a conference at a tropical resort. Once in Maui, Bucchino decided it was too good not to share. His room had an extra bed, he had a car and free food. “If you can earn a few frequent flyer miles and come for the weekend, you can get a free vacation to Hawaii,” Bucchino suggested.
“Why not?” thought Schwartz. He had a free weekend and it was Hawaii after all. “I So there,” Schwartz’s reply came from Los Angeles, and by December 16 he was there.
When Bucchino and Near had some time away from the stage, they organized a scuba diving adventure with Schwartz and Near's friend, Pat Hunt. A small boat took them to Molikini, a nearly submerged volcanic crater popular for its rainbow array of sea creatures that delight snorkelers.
On the way back, Holly casually mentioned to Stephen, “I’m reading a very interesting book called WickedGregory Maguire.”
The title of the novel sounded intriguing. “I think I heard about it. What is this about? he asked.
“This is the story of Oz from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West.”
In an instant, the essence of the backstory flashed through Schwartz's imagination. The Wizard of Oz told from the point of view of an unpopular witch. His reaction was visceral: “All the hairs on my arms stood on end,” he recalls. “I thought it was the best idea for a musical I had ever heard.”
As soon as he returned to his Los Angeles apartment, he called his lawyer in New York to inquire about Maguire's 1995 affair. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. “Okay, this book has been out for a long time, so someone has the rights. I need you to find out who has them. In the meantime, I’m going to pick up the book and read it because I think I’m going to have to.”
There was no way around this. It was a Broadway concept, not suitable for a low-budget theater company. And he knew that it was a very theatrical idea, not intended for film or television. Although he was determined and even promised never to work on Broadway again, his instincts left him no choice.
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But with the novel being so popular, surely someone in Hollywood brought it to the silver screen. Schwartz would have to stop them and somehow encourage the rights holders to consider instead the risky, expensive and time-consuming venture of producing a musical in New York.
While his lawyer, Nancy Rose, followed the trail of rights, WickedThe future composer and lyricist read the novel and confirmed that his guess was correct: the musical setting of the story of the Wicked Witch seemed to me a “typical idea”, significant enough to be worth the potential struggle.
First, he liked to look at traditional stories from a new angle. When he was in college he saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are deada play by Tom Stoppard in which two of Shakespeare's minor characters Hamlet made by the central characters. “It was a revelation for me,” he recalls. “From that moment on, the idea of looking at familiar material from an unfamiliar point of view became the goal of my work.” Godspell approached the New Testament in a new way, Children of Eden reworked Genesis to provide a new perspective on family life, and Prince of Egypt explored the story of the Exodus from the point of view of the brotherly relationship between Moses and Ramses. But Gregory Maguire's turn The Wizard of Oz there was a chance to do something more direct, similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern concept. “I knew right away that it was a brilliant idea and that it was the idea for me: the way it took a familiar theme and spun it,” recalls Schwartz.
Wicked also seemed to him to be musical in nature. “Elphaba is a very musical character with strong emotions. She's fantastic. The world is fantastic. Glinda is very musical.” It was clear to him that this story belonged to the world of musical theater.
And then there was the character that Maguire's vision brought to the center of the story: Elphaba, the quirky and misunderstood green girl who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Maguire named her after L. Frank Baum, who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Ozwhen he reflected on the sound of the author’s initials “eL”, “Fa”, “Ba”. Elphaba's story seemed close to Schwartz's emotional experience. He knew what it meant to be “green” and what internal resources were needed to continue living. “The idea of this story resonated with me sympathetically,” Schwartz states, “and I know I’m not alone. Anyone who is an artist in our society will identify with Elphaba. Anyone who is from an ethnic minority, who is black, Jewish or gay, or a woman who feels like she grew up in a man's world, or anyone who grew up feeling dissonance between who they are inside and the world around them will identify with Elphaba. I think there will be a lot of us who will do this.”
“There were things I knew right away. I knew how it would start, I knew how it would end, I knew who Elphaba was, and I knew why – on some strange level – it was autobiographical, even though it was about the green girl from Oz.” — Stephen Schwartz
Schwartz bought a spiral notebook in which he wrote down all his stories and lyrical ideas—snippets of inspiration, research notes, lists of rhyming words, first drafts of lyric lines and later drafts. On the black cover, the producer's tagline, “Five Stars in a Class of Its Own,” hinted at what would become of the musical, which began as pencil scribbles on lined pages.
Maguire has created, as the author himself described it, a dense, almost nineteenth-century novel, set over thirty-eight years and with thirty-eight speaking parts. Can any group of musical acts successfully transform these ingredients into a viable evening of theater?
From Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell To Wicked (second edition)” Carol de Gieres. © Carole de Gieres 2018. Published by Applause Books. Reprinted with permission.
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