Don’t worry if you missed Wicked’s sold out tour this month at Orpheum Theater because it’s coming back. Pat Halloran, Orpheum president, announced that the production would return Fall 2010 due to the show’s overwhelming success. The musical’s 24 performances shattered box office records for the Orpheum, beating out earlier blockbusters Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King.

Cast profiles of key members of the Memphis production of Wicked including Vicki Noon (Elphaba), Natalie Daradich (Glinda), Marilyn Caskey (Madame Morrible) and Don Amendolia (The Wizard).

Built in 1928, Beale Street’s Orpheum Theatre in Memphis Tennessee is one of the few 1920’s movie palaces still in existence. A wide variety of events are presented by the theatre, from films to concerts to Broadway shows. In the 1980s a renovation to the tune of $4.7 million included refurbishing the original furnishings, crystal chandeliers and ornamental plasterwork along with a remodel of the technical areas and backstage. The theater seats 2,500 people.

Dorothy’s famous victory over Oz’s Wicked Witch only told half of the story of Oz. The 1995 acclaimed novel from Gregory Maguire, “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” created a parallel universe and a re-imagination of Oz to the 1900 tale told in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by Frank Baum.

Wicked, the hit Broadway musical, is a magnificent triumph and one of the very best productions to have ever worked its magic on the Orpheum’s stage. The prequel to The Wizard of Oz, before Dorothy and Toto’s disruptive arrival, plays brilliantly off our love from childhood for the Wizard of Oz movie. Just as you became fully immersed in the Emerald City cinematic adventures, you will also soak the stage musical up. In fact the stage production has its own pleasing cinematic effect.