Dear listeners,
Nancy Coleman here. I’m a print editor at The Times, but you may know me from my more noteworthy theatrical roles: Girl Singing “Popular” Into a Hairbrush (a bedroom in Atlanta, circa 2008) and Woman Butchering the “Defying Gravity” Battle Cry in Her Shower (a bathroom in Manhattan, circa 2024).
The music of “Wicked” has been on rotation through much of my life. But for many, last year’s film adaptation delivered their first taste of Stephen Schwartz’s propulsive score — and of musical theater numbers at large.
“Wicked: For Good,” in theaters this week, may be the second and final chapter onscreen. But if you’ve found yourself tapping your feet to all things pink, green and witchy, it’s time to grin and bear it: Your newfound foray into show tunes is far from over.
Give these tracks a try next. You’ll be sailing through Sondheim tongue twisters in no time.
Flirting and flouncing,
Nancy
Listen along while you read.
1. If you like “What Is This Feeling?,” try: “Take Me or Leave Me” from “Rent.”
There’s a delicious tension to this early duet between Elphaba and Glinda that can also be found in “Take Me or Leave Me,” a longtime theater kid karaoke staple. This number from Jonathan Larson’s 1996 rock musical is not a spat between warring roommates but rather a lovers’ quarrel, litigated through full-belt harmonies and a key change. And there’s an added “Wicked”-adjacent bonus — Broadway’s original Elphaba, Idina Menzel, here plays Maureen, an excessive flirt whose girlfriend is fed up with her wandering eyes.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. If you like “Popular,” try: “When He Sees Me” from “Waitress.”
In some ways, these songs couldn’t be more different. Glinda is overflowing with confidence in “Popular,” and Dawn, a skittish bespectacled waitress, would rather crawl under a rock than brave the horrors of online dating. But musically, each feels as light as air — prime fodder for a late-night hairbrush performance. The rapid-fire anxious musings of “When He Sees Me,” with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, seem perfectly reasonable to me: Dawn frets that she might meet a “psychopath” or, equally terrifying, someone who eats the cookie before the cream of an Oreo.
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3. If you like “One Short Day,” try: “One Night in Bangkok” from “Chess.”
I’ve got “Chess” on the brain after seeing the new revival on Broadway last week, and “One Night in Bangkok” is the song that’s been stuck in my head since. Both tracks include upbeat tongue twisters, but only one brings the edge of the Abba songwriters Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus. Aaron Tveit sings this number in the current revival; I’ve been recently turning to Adam Pascal’s recording from a 2008 concert.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. If you like “As Long as You’re Mine,” try: “All I’ve Ever Known” from “Hadestown.”
There is certainly no shortage of love songs in musical theater. But where Fiyero and Elphaba’s duet feels gritty and thrilling, a stolen moment in an illicit affair, the star-crossed lovers of “Hadestown” offer something tender and tranquil that’s more like a soft confession: “All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own,” Eurydice sings in the chorus, “but now I wanna hold you, too.” Another reason to smile while you listen: The voices you’re hearing are the Broadway production’s original Orpheus and Eurydice, Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada — who just got married in real life.
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5. If you like “No Good Deed,” try: “Rose’s Turn” from “Gypsy.”
“Rose’s Turn” is the mother of all 11 o’clock numbers — the climactic showstoppers that hit just before the curtain closes — and “No Good Deed,” one of the moments I’m most looking forward to seeing onscreen this week, packs a similar bitter punch. Whether you listen to Patti LuPone’s rendition as Momma Rose or Audra McDonald’s is between you and your God.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. If you like “For Good,” try: “No One Is Alone” from “Into the Woods.”
So you heard two witches singing about friendship, and now you’re ugly sobbing as you leave the theater. We’ve all been there. If you really want to twist the knife, Stephen Sondheim’s songbook will get the job done. The penultimate song from “Into the Woods,” which comes after a decent chunk of the fairy-tale cast gets trampled by a giant or cursed by a witch or both, is sure to induce more waterworks. I’m fond of the 2022 Broadway revival, with Phillipa Soo as Cinderella and Brian d’Arcy James as the Baker.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. If you want more Stephen Schwartz, try: “Corner of the Sky” from “Pippin.”
Elphaba has “The Wizard and I,” and Pippin has “Corner of the Sky”: a buoyant ballad that’s driven by a crystalline, lilting piano line and a melody brimming with possibility. Schwartz’s lyrics are sweet and earnest, painting a straightforward picture of a young man searching for something more out of life: “Rivers belong where they can ramble / Eagles belong where they can fly,” Pippin sings. “I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. If you want more Ariana Grande, try: “Brand New You” from “13.”
Before her rise to pop stardom, and even before her Nickelodeon days, a 15-year-old Ariana Grande made her Broadway debut in “13,” Jason Robert Brown’s 2008 coming-of-age musical chock-full of preteens. Grande was in an ensemble role as Charlotte, but even 17 years later, her riffs are immediately recognizable on the bouncy finale, “Brand New You,” and on the heartfelt chorus of “A Little More Homework.” There must have been some Ozdust in the water at the Jacobs Theater: Grande’s “13” castmate Allie Trimm is Broadway’s current Glinda.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. If you want more Cynthia Erivo, try: “I’m Here” from “The Color Purple.”
Some musical numbers can be difficult to sing. And some, “Defying Gravity” among them, are in their own echelon of the infamously impossible. Cynthia Erivo has a knack for taking those in the latter category and singing them into the stratosphere, a reputation earned from her star-making turn in the 2015 Broadway revival of “The Color Purple.” The Times’s review called her “incandescent,” and when you watch the way she performs Celie’s soaring anthem, with a depth of emotion wrought out of an otherworldly dimension, you can see why.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“9 Musical Theater Gems to Try After ‘Wicked’” track list
Track 1: “Take Me or Leave Me” from “Rent”
Track 2: “When He Sees Me” from “Waitress”
Track 3: “One Night in Bangkok” from “Chess”
Track 4: “All I’ve Ever Known” from “Hadestown”
Track 5: “Rose’s Turn” from “Gypsy”
Track 6: “No One Is Alone” from “Into the Woods”
Track 7: “Corner of the Sky” from “Pippin”
Track 8: “Brand New You” from “13”
Track 9: “I’m Here” from “The Color Purple”
Bonus Tracks
Caryn the editor here! We’ll have a lot more “Wicked” in the coming days, but don’t miss Kyle Buchanan’s profile of Ariana Grande, in which she gets emotional about her pop career: “There’s a thing that comes along with your dreams coming true that feels dangerous at times.”
Nancy Coleman is a Times editor who writes about theater.
The post Obsessed With ‘Wicked’? Try 9 More Songs From Beloved Musicals. appeared first on New York Times.
