Idina Menzel And Ariana Grande Will Do ‘Wicked’ The Musical TV Event

(From left) Idina Menzel, Ariana Grande, Kristin Chenoweth Image by GETTY IMAGES/FORWARD MONTAGE

By Jenny Singer September 28, 2018

It’s like a dream — and you were there! And you were there! Kristin Chenoweth was there! Idina Menzel was there! And Ariana Grande, and the Pentatonix, and Ben Platt’s dad, and the guy who got engaged at the Emmy’s were all there!

“Wicked,” the record-smashing, elegant, blockbuster Broadway musical, will take to the diminutive silver screen on October, 29 with “A Very Wicked Halloween: Celebrating 15 Years on Broadway.” Rejoicing in 1.5 decades of performing eight times a week on Broadway, the musical’s original stars, current cast, and a coterie of pop performers will give a “concert tribute event” the Monday before Halloween on NBC.

And can we just say? Because we know this, we have been changed for good.

Not only will every glorious mezzo-soprano and high-belt coloratura blonde join together in song on October 29, the whole situation will be produced by BEN PLATT’S DAD. That’s right, folks — before Marc Platt gave us a polo-wearing boy who waved through a window, he gave us the musical “Wicked.” Platt produced “Wicked” with David Stone and Universal. Platt will be joined by Richard Kirshner (another one of ours,) and the whole emerald-colored shebang will be co-produced and directed by Glenn Weiss.

Yes, you remember Glenn Weiss — the director of the Oscars who splashily proposed at the 2018 Emmys.

This project, while likely to be very, very “popular,” will not be enough to distract the rabid public from the decade-long project of asking for a big-screen “Wicked.” The “Wicked” movie — ostensibly in the works since the earliest days of the musical’s smash success — is scheduled for December 20, 2019. Like the Wizard’s credentials, we’ll believe it when we see it.

And yet! A performance that will reunite Chenoweth and Menzel with their most crucial work is set for Halloweekend. What is this feeling, so sudden and new (especially in the barren hellhole that is the week of September 2018)? Oh, yes — it’s ecstasy.

The only logical next step is a series of Graphic Interchange Formats:

via GIPHY

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

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