Wicked Turns Five, Celebrates With Green Playbills

Wicked, Broadway’s longtime top-grosser, celebrates the fifth anniversary of its opening tonight with a colorful commemoration: departing from their signature yellow, the mastheads of the show’s Playbills will be printed in green, according to Broadwayworld.com. A tribute to the famously verdant skin of Elphaba, Wicked’s witchy heroine, the revamped programs will be the first in history that Playbill has specially tailored for a particular performance.

Tonight’s show caps off a week of high-profile birthday festivities for the show. On Monday, Oct. 27, the Gershwin Theatre hosted "The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken," a benefit concert for Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project. The event boasted never-before-performed material from early versions of the musical and was attended by several New York luminaries, including View newsmaker Joy Behar and Gossip Girl’s Matthew Settle. The same night, the Empire State Building shone green in honor of the Broadway blockbuster.

Can’t make tonight’s show but still want a piece of the festivities? You can buy the limited-edition green programs, sure to sell out quickly, at www.playbillstore.com. You can also catch Stephen Schwartz, Wicked’s composer-lyricist, at Barnes & Noble at Broadway and 66th Street at 5:30 today, where he’ll discuss his career with Carol de Giere, author of the new Schwartz bio Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz from Godspell to Wicked.