Gina Beck & Alison Fraser Join Cast of WICKED National Tour Today

The company of the first North American tour of WICKED welcome Gina Beck as Glinda and Alison Fraser as Madame Morrible today, Monday, December 16 in Chicago, IL. WICKED, Broadway's biggest blockbuster, is playing through December 21 at the Oriental Theatre.

Beck will be making her US debut in WICKED. She comes to the tour directly from the West End production of WICKED where she played Glinda. Other West End credits include: Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera and Cosette in LES MISERABLES. BBC credits include: "Doctors," "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Crust." Feature Film credits include Turning Woman 3 and LES MISERABLES.

Fraser is a two-time Tony Award nominee for The Secret Garden and Romance/Romance. Other Broadway credits include Gypsy,Tartuffe, Born Again and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Roles she has originated include Matron in Tennessee Williams's In Masks Outrageous and Austere, Arsinoë in The School for Lies, Sister Walburga in The Divine Sister, Miss Drumgoole in Up Against It, Trina inMarch of the Falsettos and In Trousers and Veronica Bailey on ItCouldBeWorse.tv.

Beck and Fraser join a cast that includes Alison Luff as Elphaba and John Davidson as The Wizard.

The company also features Tom Flynn (Dr. Dillamond), Curt Hansen (Fiyero), Jesse JP Johnson (Boq), Jaime Rosenstein (Nessarose) and Laurel Harris (Standby for Elphaba) with Keith A. Bearden, Shayla Beck, Dina Bennett, Kyle Brown, Nirine S. Brown, John Carroll, Rick Desloge, Timothy A. Fitz-Gerald, Adam Fleming, Jenny Florkowski, Lindsay Janisse, Spencer Jones, Sheila Karls, Ryan PatRick Kelly, Trevor Ryan Krahl, Marina Lazzaretto, Alison Leo, Marissa Lupp, Raymond Joel Matsamura, Jonathan McGill, Kevin McMahon, Meredith Miles, Shanon Mari Mills, Cassie Okenka, Brandon Rubendall, Christopher Russo, Pamela Shandrow, Daniel Switzer, Shanna VanDerwerker and Nicky Venditti.

WICKED, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Pippin, Godspell, Disney's Enchanted, Academy Award winner for Pocahontasand The Prince of Egypt) and book by Winnie Holzman ("My So Called Life," "Once And Again" and "thirtysomething"), is based on the 1995 best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire. The musical is directed by two-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Take Me Out,Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Vagina Monologues) and features musical staging by Tony Award winner Wayne Cilento (Aida,The Who's Tommy, How To Succeed...). WICKED, the untold story of the witches of Oz, is produced by Marc Platt, Universal Pictures, The Araca Group, Jon B. Platt and David Stone.

WICKED features set design by Tony Award winner Eugene Lee (Ragtime, Show Boat, Candide, Sweeney Todd), costume design by Tony winner Susan Hilferty (Spring Awakening, Into the Woods, Assassins), lighting design by Tony winner Kenneth Posner (Tony Award winner for The Coast of Utopia, Hairspray) and sound design by Tony Meola (The Lion King). Stephen Oremus is the show's music supervisor. Orchestrations are by William David Brohn, with dance arrangements by James Lynn Abbott.

Having just celebrated its 10th Anniversary on October 30th, there are currently nine productions of the musical worldwide: New York, London, Japan (Tokyo), Australia/New Zealand (Auckland), South Korea (Seoul), Latin America (Mexico City), a U.K. Tour, and two concurrent North American National Tours. Broadway's #1 show for an unprecedented nine consecutive years, WICKED has been declared "A Cultural Phenomenon" by Variety and "The Best Musical of the Decade" by Entertainment Weekly.

Winner of over 50 major awards including the Grammy Award and three Tony Awards, WICKED is the untold story of the witches of Oz. Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the land of Oz. One, born with emerald-green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. WICKED tells the story of their remarkable odyssey, how these two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.

Grammy Award-Winning Cast recording available on Decca Broadway. For more information about WICKED log on to www.wickedthemusical.com.

Photo by Tristram Kenton