Ready to return to Oz?
Watching Wicked: One Wonderful Night will reignite your love of Jon M. Chu’s films. It showcases not just top-tier talent in the musical performances from Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Bowen Yang, and Ethan Slater, but it brings forth a celebration of musical theater unlike any special in recent memory. Since the big screen adaptations made such a cultural impact, One Wonderful Night knows how to pay homage to those films while providing a brand new event to adore. No one knows that more that choreographer Christopher Scott: he allows the magic of Chu’s films to literally leap off the screen and feel more alive than ever before.
Choreographing something in a film is different than mounting the same number on stage. Even if you plan similar movement, the medium, we must remember, is another kind of animal. Scott didn’t just do a cut-and-paste job from his work in Wicked and Wicked: For Good. For the films, he would weigh how the choreography relates to the camera while, in this special, he has to take into account how his dancers and performers will project their energy to the audience in the house and to us watching at home. When the camera is on stage, Scott effortlessly planned the dancing to take into account of how it would move alongside it.
We have never seen the hopeful ballad “The Wizard and I” performed with additional movement, and Erivo didn’t have the opportunity to include that into a lot of her songs across both of Chu’s films. Scott grants Elphaba’s optimism and dreams to physically manifest as they circle around her. They bow and use move their heads about as if they are trying to find the appropriate affectation for when they meet The Wizard himself. When the show shifts to one of the most beloved (and viral) numbers, “What Is This Feeling?”, Scott ups his own game by allowing the dancers to embrace a swagger that would make them the most popular student at Shiz University. He had to include the movement that had everyone on TikTok eager to find the next iteration, but he blends it with new choreography in an exciting medley that includes none other than Academy Award winner, Michelle Yeoh. Yes, I was delighted when he revealed to me that he worked with Yeoh on her hands movement when Madame Morrible was summoning that fateful tornado.
One Wonderful Night proves that the living animal of theater and movement can evolve while remaining true to what made you fall in love with it in the first place. Scott’s work is precise and magical, because of how invested he is in the swirling majesty of this world.
Wicked: One Wonderful Night is streaming on Peacock.
