UK WICKED to Take Part in Royal Variety Performance 12/4

WICKED will take part in this year's prestigious Royal Variety Performance on Monday 4th December at the London Coliseum in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall. idina menzel, Helen Dallimore and the company of WICKED will perform 'One Short Day' and 'Defying Gravity'.

The 78th Royal Variety Performance is an annual charity event in aid of the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund and will be broadcast by BBC One in December.

WICKED, the new hit musical that tells the untold story of the legendary witches from L. Frank Baum's classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, has already been seen by over 130,000 people since performances began at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre on 7 September.

Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the land of Oz. One, born with emerald-green skin, is smart, feisty and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very, very popular. WICKED is the story of these two unlikely friends and how they end up as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.

Based on the novel 'Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West' by Gregory Maguire, WICKED, has music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by Winnie Holzman, scenic design by Eugene Lee, costumes by Susan Hilferty, lighting by Kenneth Posner, sound by Tony Meola, projections by Elaine J. McCarthy, wig and hair designs by Tom Watson, music supervision and arrangements by Stephen Oremus, UK music supervision by Gareth Valentine, orchestrations by William David Brohn, dance arrangements by James Lynn Abbott, musical staging by Wayne Cilento and is directed by Joe Mantello.

The principal London cast of WICKED is: idina menzel, who is recreating her Tony Award-winning Broadway performance as Elphaba, Helen Dallimore, who made her West End debut as Glinda, Adam Garcia as Fiyero, Miriam Margolyes as Madame Morrible, Nigel Planer as The Wizard, Martin Ball as Doctor Dillamond, James Gillan as Boq and Katie Rowley Jones as Nessarose. From January 2007 the role of Elphaba will be played by Kerry Ellis.

WICKED is presented in London by Marc Platt, Universal Pictures, The Araca Group, Jon B. Platt and David Stone. UK General Management: Act Productions / Nick Salmon, Executive Producer: Michael McCabe.