BEDFORD – Fans have been waiting a long time to see Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as witches on the big screen, but the wait ends this week: ‘Wicked’ – part one of the ‘untold story’ of the witches of Oz – opens Friday in theaters everywhere, including the Bedford Playhouse.

The venue is celebrating this occasion with a special event. Friday at 7 p.m., before the 7:30 p.m. screening, a man with an intimate connection to the Stephen Schwartz musical and a special connection to the Playhouse will give a short speech and answer questions from the audience.

Dan Micciche is as inside as a “bad” insider can get.

Not only did he attend the New York premiere of “Wicked” with Grande and Erivo and Schwartz – “It was absolutely amazing,” he says – he is also musical director and conductor of the Gershwin Theater, the man in charge of love ‘Wicked’. sound like “Wicked” eight shows a week on Broadway and in the touring companies.

He does a quick calculation and estimates that he has heard the final notes of ‘Defying Gravity’ – which fans know – more than 3,500 times from his stage opposite the orchestra. But those are just the performances. Micciche also does all the staffing for the Broadway and national companies, auditioning approximately 15,000 actors annually. He conducts auditions and rehearsals during the day before his other job, conducting the juggernaut of a musical.

“The show is the end of my day,” he says.

Micciche has had a summer residency at the Bedford Playhouse for four years now, since the Darien, Connecticut native moved to Ridgefield, Connecticut during the pandemic. With Broadway closed, he contacted the Playhouse and began bringing Broadway friends to perform on the green or in the theater. To this day, the gaming house staff has an “evil” insider on speed dial.

Friday’s special event is sold out, so we asked Micciche to answer some of our “bad” questions. His answers are condensed for space and clarity. (More about Micciche at https://www.danmiccichemusic.com.)

Q: As someone who stands there every night and is blown away by (the song) “Defying Gravity,” can you put into words what that transposition to the screen means to you? Does it affect you differently?

Dan Micciche: “Yes, that’s right. About a year and a half ago, when they started production on the movie, I started working with Stephen Schwartz on the pre-records and we did some new stuff that they’re using for the second part. It was really great to start from scratch with the new material they’re doing. But watching it that night (at the New York premiere) was… so much high school and I’m almost 11 years old now. at the show in so many different capacities. Just watching this huge corporate machine that I run every night on Broadway to see it translated into a movie, but also to sit in the theater with my colleagues and Ari and Cynthia and Schwartz and we all watched this movie was… It’s so big, yet intimate.

There must be people who are still seeing it for the first time in the Gershwin.

“There are. It’s amazing. And I have to tell you, after 21 years and almost 11 years on my own, some nights when ‘Defying Gravity’ comes on I think, ‘Wow, this is really good.’ It’s just an excellent piece. I mean, it’s extremely well done and there’s so much in the material. After 21 years, it touches everything and it touches everyone at all different ages.

For them it is not just a spectacle.

“This show goes very deep for people. It’s a life-changing experience for some people and it just goes to show what the original creatives did with (composer) Schwartz and (book writer) Winnie Holzman and (director) Joe Mantello. It resonates on a deeper level than people going to a nice Broadway show. It really resonates for people personally.”

Why do you think that is so?

“I think it comes from the journey between the two women and seeing Elphaba and identifying with times where we feel like we don’t fit in and we’re looked at differently. And then people who identify with Glinda. Even everything that happens with Dr. Dillamond and how the wizard tries to silence him. It really speaks to a lot of different things that are happening in our world to this day.

Are the themes still fresh after 21 years?

“That’s right. I did ‘Chicago: The Musical’ on Broadway for six years before I started ‘Wicked’ and it’s the same thing people say at the stage door: ‘Did they rewrite the show before then?’ ‘Chicago’ originally flopped in 1975, but became such a huge hit in 1996 because of the OJ Simpson trial, when things were still so relevant. I definitely changed the script for ‘Wicked’ to reflect what was happening in the world .’ And I’m like, ‘No, they didn’t change anything.'”

About ‘Bad“: Directed by Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians,” “In the Heights”), “Wicked” is the first of a two-part series. “Wicked Part Two” hits theaters in November 2025. Starring Ariana Grande as the popular Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as the serious Elphaba as Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose;

About Bedford Playhouse: Bedford Playhouse is located at 633 Old Post Road, Bedford, NY. https://bedfordplayhouse.org/

Reach Peter D. Kramer at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: ‘Wicked’ Broadway conductor Dan Micciche talks film and Ariana Grande