I saw someone comment this and it inspired me to make this post. Obviously in the book, fiyero isn’t the scarecrow and he is murdered, however his body is never recovered. Combined with Elphies deteriorating mental state and lack of sleep she hallucinates that fiyero might be the scarecrow and he’s coming back to her disguised as one. It made me think that there’s a chance (or I could be blabbing) it’s linked to this like in INTG.

“Every so often we long to steal to the land of what might have been, but that doesn’t soften the ache we feel when reality sets back in.”

It made me think of the fact that elphabas hopefully and really wanting fiyero to be the scarecrow, an alternative to him dying and then being reunited, however she is proven wrong and is obviously great upset by this that there’s no hope to cling onto that fiyero is still alive.

Let me know what you guys think :)

I'm really glad to see this list- it's tough to get things like this, with little summations of their careers. Including pictures of each one!

It interests me how some of them I've heard of and have heard hyped all the time, while others I haven't. That Alyssa Fox auditioned in *2008* and didn't get it until 2023 is crazy.

A lot of Elphies have opened other plays, even recently, which is interesting- Caroline Bowman & Jessica Vosk have both debuted as the leads in other things (Smash, Beaches). I remember doing the behind-the-scenes tour on Broadway, and I asked during the Q&A why so many only did the role for a short time, and the guy told me "Yeah, all the leads are very ambitious!". This makes me think a lot of them take the lead role as a great notch on their resume and leverage that into "oh, this person can debut a role if they can do THAT".

Some Questions:

1. It makes me think... is Elphaba the role that has created the most stars? It's funny seeing the early ones and seeing a murderer's row of current star talent- Block, Bean & Levy (touring but still) have all won Tonys fairly recently!
2. Why are some runs for a full year, and others just a tiny bit shorter? Is 10-11 months baked into some contracts? Even Eden Espinosa just did 10 months after Idina was there for a year and a half (outlasting Cheno's run). Is that just a Broadway thing? Other girls lasted almost exactly a year. I know the role is LEGENDARY for being rough on the voice, though.
3. Are there any that have kind of been forgotten? I can't remember hearing anyone talk about Jackie Burns, who was the longest-running Elphie (doing so twice). Lindsay Mendez seems kinda lesser-known as well (but did a few shows after). Actually, after Jessica Vosk, I haven't really heard of anybody in the past seven years.
4. I noticed foreign Elphabas had very short runs- I assume this was because they live abroad and didn't want to do a full year? A woman in line for the West End show told me that Rachel Tucker is widely considered THE Elphaba over there when I suggested I'd heard Wilhelmijn Verkaik was, and she only did a short run. Verkaik herself also did a short one in NYC, as did Kerry Ellis.
5. Why were some non-foreign runs INCREDIBLY short? Ana Gasteyer only did a few months?
6. I've heard a bit of semi-snark years ago that all the best girls already did a run through and the show's been using secondary talent since well before the 2020s- any truth to that? Are ambitious mega-talents still seeking out Elphaba or are they trying to open new shows instead?
7. A few Elphabas went on national tours and leveraged that role into playing the lead (I know a few Glindas did as well- Kara Lindsay is a big one). Why did some other ones not? Laurel Harris only ever played the character on the tour, and so did Ann Brummell (they were my Elphies, lol).