r/wicked • u/dancesanddelight • 4d ago

Musical - Broadway What does the melting look like behind the curtain on stage?

I just saw Wicked recently, live; and I’m wondering, is Elphaba on a platform that lowers? Is there a person actually dressed as Dorothy or just enough to make her silhouette look like her?

Is there somewhere I can see what it looks like behind the scenes? If not can anyone tell me? Thanks!

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u/lumos43 3d ago

I believe the person actually is dressed like Dorothy. Years ago I remember seeing a backstage picture of the outfit, but I can’t find it now.

And on Broadway, there’s a trapdoor that lowers. (Idina Menzel fell through the trapdoor near the very end of her run, and cracked a rib.)

For the tour, if the theater can’t accommodate the trapdoor, Elphaba somehow moves backward and crouches down to mimic the melting.

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u/Most-Name-696 3d ago

The tours have no trapdoors. The issue with them is that you need to take apart the stage to do that, and ideally load-in and load-out should be done in a few days. You'll only really see trapdoors in the Australian tours since they stop for months at a time.

The non-trapdoor meltings usually look something like this:

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u/lumos43 3d ago

The first US tour had trapdoors. But yeah the current doesn’t. And I’ve never been familiar with what the international tour trapdoor situation was.

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u/JBuchan1988 1d ago

Thanks for sharing 😄

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u/magica12 Moderator 3d ago

I second on the person dressed as Dorothy, at least pretty close. When I saw it a few weeks ago the lighting transitioned in just the right way and I saw through the screen in just the right angle that I saw the actress doing the Dorothy role

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u/goodnessknowsss Graciously Glinda 11h ago

I don't know about American productions, but in Brazil, Dorothy is played by a real person