The Grammy Award winning original cast recording of the hit Broadway musical Wicked has just been certified "Platinum" by the Recording Industry Association of America, for sales of more than one million copies. Produced by composer Stephen Schwartz for Decca Broadway, the album has been the fastest selling original cast recording in years, has regularly appeared on the list of Amazon's top-selling albums and is currently #1 on Billboard's Top Cast Album Chart, the position it occupied when the chart debuted in January 2006.
Since opening at the Gershwin Theatre on October 30, 2003, Wicked has regularly broken house records with box office receipts of more than $1.4 million per week. For the week ending November 24, 2006, the show broke the all-time Broadway record with a weekly box office take of more than $1.7 million.
Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, Wicked tells the story of how two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. The show has music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. Directed by Joe Mantello, Wicked is currently running on Broadway, on a national tour currently in Toronto, and as an open-ended engagement at Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts/Oriental Theatre. A fourth North American production, an open-ended engagement in Los Angeles, will begin on February 10, 2007 at the Pantages Theatre. A London production opened at the Apollo Victoria Theatre on September 27, 2006, and recently broke the record for the all-time highest weekly gross in West End history.
