Wicked: Grimmerie

Wicked: The Grimmerie

Wicked: The Grimmerie offers fans a behind-the-curtains peek at the musical, profiles of the cast and creative team, and inside stories, with photographs and drawings. Through interviews, readers learn how the musical's book was written, what approach the director Joe Mantello took, how the costumes and sets were designed and made, and more. The author interviewed the stars from the original Broadway cast, the second cast, and the tour cast, and so comments from each are included.

Special features include an "Ozian" glossary, a step-by-step look at how Elphaba gets green before each show, original handwritten notes from Stephen Schwartz's first draft of "Defying Gravity." Hardback. 190 Pages. By theatre writer David Cote and show photographer Joan Marcus.

See also: Wicked Grimmerie Reviews and Street Buzz

From Jessica, age 18: "The Grimmerie is a wonderful resource for any fan. The pictures, behind the scenes information, descriptions of the creative process, interviews with the cast and crew, as well as the more whimsical entries such as the character profiles and Ozian slang dictionary were "wonderful". All these insights are an amazing treat for any serious Wicked fan, and as far as they were concerned "I couldn't be happier". The one piece of the Grimmerie I would have to say I was disappointed with was the liberetto. Everyone I spoke to prior to the book's release seemed to believe that it would contain the full script; which obviously was not the case. REVIEWS CONTINUE: - Wicked Grimmerie Reviews etc.

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In Europe - Please visit and shop from our UK site WickedWestEnd.co.uk

Best sources of "Making of" the musical stories before the release of this book:

Q and A about Wicked & The Grimmery...

[Photo by Joan Marcus from Broadway production]

SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. Who is Elphaba,... Galinda/Glinda, Madame Morrible, Dr. Dillamond?? Visit the Wicked Characters page is you haven't seen the musical.

2. What is the Grimmery in the musical and Novel?

MUSICAL: In Act I - MADAME MORRIBLE has been scheming with the Wizard about how to get Elphaba to use her magic skills to serve their interests. Morrible wants her to use a levitation spell on the monkeys, and she hands Elphaba the book. Glinda stares at in in awe: " I don't believe it. Is that…The Grimmerie!?"... The Grimmerie plays an important role in ACT II: its use demonstrates how knowledge and power can be abused.

NOVEL: Gregory Maguire introduced the Grimmerie much later in the story of Elphaba's life. In the castle section, when Elphaba is hidden away at Kiamo Ko, she discovers it and begins to experiment with it. In an early paperback edition, the Grimmerie first appears on page 265. [Note that this was written in the pre-Harry Potter era.]

"Elphaba was bent almost double over a huge folio laid out on the carpenter's work bench.... [She explains to Sarima] "As I understand it," Elphie said, "a sort of encyclopedia of things numinous. Magic; and of the spirit world; and of things seen and unseen; and of things once and future. I can only make out a line here or there. Look how it scrambles itself as you watch."

Then Sarima (Fiyero's wife) describes the sorcerer who brought it. "...He said it was a book of knowledge, and that it belonged in another world, but it wasn't safe there. So he brought it here--where it could be hidden out of harm's way."

The implication is that the sorcerer is the man from Earth's Kansas (another world) who became the Wizard of Oz. The reason why Elphaba can just make out some of the writing, even though it's from another world, is that she has a connection with the Wizard.

Read about WICKED VOCABULARY - WICKED script Q and A

For more Wicked Q and A see the FAQ section of the WICKED home page:

Don't miss our Wicked home page for links to 50 Wicked-related pages

ADD YOUR REVIEW: Wicked the Grimmerie Reviews and Street Buzz - Wicked Grimmerie Reviews etc.