Wicked is flying back to Liverpool Empire Theatre and tickets are now on sale

Wicked will fly back into the Liverpool Empire Theatre from Thursday 20 June – Sunday 14 July 2024.

Wicked, West End and Broadway musical phenomenon that tells the incredible untold story of the Witches of Oz, continues its open-ended run at London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre, where it is already the 12^th longest-running production in West End history. The spectacular, multi-record-breaking, and critically acclaimed touring production returns tothe Liverpool Empire for a third engagement, having sold nearly 140,000 tickets across its two celebrated previous engagements in 2014 and 2018.The cast will be led by former West End ‘Elphaba’ Laura Pick, with further casting to be announced.

Laura Pick (Elphaba) was born in Wakefield and trained at Mountview. She made her London stage debut in July 2013 in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Her West End journey in Wicked began in 2017, when she was cast as the Standby for ‘Elphaba’. Laura subsequently assumed the starring role full-time, playing ‘Elphaba’ in the West End at more than 350 performances to huge acclaim. Most recently, Laurawowed viewers with a sensational performance of ‘Defying Gravity’ from Wicked on BBC1’s Big Night of Musicals. The show is currently available to watch on catch-up via BBC iPlayer HERE

It takes over 100 people on-stage and behind the scenes to deliver performances of this award-winning touring production of Wicked. Featuring all the celebrated spectacle, magic, technical wizardry, and more than 350 stunning costumes, this production has been acclaimed, in a five-star review, as “every bit the West End show” (The Reviews Hub).

Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’smusical, based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, imagines a beguiling backstory and future possibilities to the lives of L. Frank Baum’s beloved characters from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reveals the decisions and events that shape the destinies of two unlikely university friends on their journey to becoming Glinda The Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.

Wicked has now been seen by more than 60 million people worldwide, and 2023 marks the 20^th Anniversary of its Broadway premiere. Productions continue on Broadway, in the West End, and on tour across North America. This year, Wicked also returns to Sydney, Australia and Tokyo, Japan.

Wicked has won over 100 major international awards including 3 Tony Awards; 6 Drama Desk Awards; 2 Olivier Audience Awards (BBC Radio 2 Audience Award, ITV’s This Morning Audience Award); 11 WhatsOnStage Awards (including 3 for ‘Best West End Show’); 6 Australian Helpmann Awards, and aGrammy.

Wickedfeatures songs by multi-Oscar and Grammy Award winner Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, The Prince of Egypt, Disney’s Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Enchanted). It is based on the multimillion-copy best-selling novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire and written by Emmy and Tony Award nominee Winnie Holzman (creator of the landmark American television series My So-Called Life). Musical staging is by Tony Award-winner Wayne Cilento with direction by two-time Tony Award-winner Joe Mantello.

Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman are currently collaborating on the two-part Universal Pictures film version of Wicked, directed by Jon M. Chu and starring Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh,and Jeff Goldblum.