From Oklahoma to Oz: Keri René Fuller's Road to Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway

When Keri René Fuller was growing up in Oklahoma, she used to fall asleep to the Wicked cast album. "It was always a dream," Fuller tells Broadway.com Managing Editor Beth Stevens about one day being in the show, but she never thought it would happen. Today, Fuller is getting greenified eight times a week on Broadway. Her path to defying gravity was not easy, but she learned a lot along the way.

"I've just sung my entire life," Fuller says. "It's probably the thing that comes the most naturally to me, like the equivalent of breathing." At eight years old, Fuller was performing Céline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" at Oklahoma City's Quail Springs Mall when the cassette tape suddenly unraveled. "The music stopped entirely. I just kept singing," she says, recalling how much she found herself reveling in the attention. "Because my heart went on and on and on."

Fuller didn't experience Wicked on Broadway until after she'd already booked the job. She saw the tour as a child, but she was so young she barely remembered it. She finally saw it at the Gershwin Theatre in March 2025, after she'd been cast as the Broadway standby for Elphaba. "I was like, 'I should probably see this musical that I'm going to be a part of for hopefully a good amount of time.'"

Stepping into the role full-time has been every bit as exhilarating as she'd hoped. Fuller says she was surprised by the emotional weight of carrying one of Broadway's most demanding roles. "Honestly, I wasn't expecting to feel so much self-doubt and such a lack of self-confidence," she admits, while acknowledging that Elphaba's story is one of empowerment. "Any woman that has ever played the role anywhere in the world knows what a superhuman feat it is. It's literally every emotion I've ever felt. I'm full of grief. At the same time, I'm full of joy."

To quiet her insecurities, Fuller taps into her optimistic side. "I go into every single show believing that anything is possible," she says. More than anything, she's driven by the crowd. "I feel this massive responsibility to give everybody in that audience the world," she says. "I'm just like a little girl that's listening to 'What Is This Feeling' as she's falling asleep to her little boom box."

After graduating from Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio, Fuller spent years working and auditioning before making her Broadway debut in Waitress. "I don't think that I was prepared for what actual resilience meant," she says about trying to make a living in theater, "showing up regardless of whether people accepted you or not. I wouldn't go back and book something right out of school, because of the amount of lessons I learned. It's just something that you don't learn until you're here."

Many theater fans first discovered Fuller through her Broadway.com performance of "Memory" from Cats. Fuller believes the performance went viral because it tapped into something personal for viewers. "I grew up with a very deep sense of solitude and isolation," she says. "I think that that essence carried through that song, and I feel very honored that I got to facilitate that feeling for people." She even came back to the Broadway.com studio to sing "No Good Deed" from Wicked.

Offstage, Fuller credits her biggest supporter: her husband, and fellow Broadway star, Matthew James Thomas. "The amount of support and encouragement is truly inexplicable," she says of her partner, whom she married last year. She says he always helps to keep her grounded. "He's like, 'Believe that you're where you're supposed to be. Just be where your feet are.'"

Grounded is a word Fuller returns to often, both in life and in her interpretation of Elphaba. While audiences see the character's strength, Fuller connects most to her vulnerability. Growing up as an only child taught her independence but also strength in solitude. "Her anger comes from passion," Fuller says of the character. "Her passion comes from not wanting other people to feel the way she has felt."

It's that emotional complexity, Fuller believes, that has kept Wicked thriving for more than 20 years. "I think there is something that every single human being in the audience can relate to in that story," she says. "Wicked is a beautiful family musical. But it also talks about real things." And while audiences leave inspired by Elphaba's story, Fuller still finds herself amazed she's the one telling it. "Like, how wild that I get to do this," she says. "I pinch myself all the time."

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