You may have noticed the sudden popularity of the colors pink and green. You can thank the movie Wicked. The musical film is already one of the country’s highest grossing movies this year, and it’s also an international hit.
The movie musical starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo was adapted from Act 1 of the hit 2003 Broadway musical of the same name. It’s considered a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. Part two of the film is due out near the end of 2025.
“BFA programs are popping up everywhere I think because of shows like Wicked, because of shows like Hamilton. It’s a very exciting time for the art form,” says Lauren Haughton Gillis, the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Music Theatre Director at Florida State University.
She is an assistant professor who still works professionally in regional theatre, often as a choreographer or director.
Haughton Gillis has also been in Wicked, both on Broadway and in a national tour as well as regional performances between 2007 and 2018. She was cast as a swing.
“A swing is an understudy or cover for the entire ensemble,” says Haughton Gillis, who compares it to athletes on the bench waiting to be called into a game. She was on standby to play one of ten ensemble roles due to another performer’s injury, sickness, or vacation. “Sometimes I had hours of notice, and sometimes it would be like five minutes before curtain.”
She says she had to be “malleable.”
With the successful movie adaptation of Wicked, Haughton Gillis thinks collegiate music theatre programs could see an even larger talented flock of applicants.
“To have a career that is long-lasting, you need an intense training program like we have at Florida State,” she says, noting the rigors of the career. “To learn how to do eight shows in one week, to maintain your voice, and to maintain your body as a dancer…you have to train and you have to know what that takes and to know how to keep yourself healthy.”
As the movie Wicked gains fans, Haughton Gillis hopes it will draw bigger audiences to theatrical performances. “Nothing replaces the idea and the experiences of going to a show with a live piano, live orchestra,” she says. “That energy of audience to performer, there’s nothing like it. We’ll never be able to AI that experience.”
Haughton Gillis says theatre is even more important given the growth of artificial intelligence.
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