The minute that I heard tickets for Wicked in Philadelphia were going on sale, I hopped online to buy some. I went back and forth on whether or not to take Lily (4.5 years old) with us. While Bob and I have seen Wicked several times over the years, Lily has not. We took her to see Newsies on Broadway last spring and to Beauty and the Beast in Philadelphia last summer. She loved both of those shows so I knew that she’d probably love Wicked – but I still worried about the handful of scary elements. Ultimately I decided that it was worth the gamble and bought tickets for all 3 of us.
We drove into Philly for the 6:30 pm show on a Sunday evening. We tend to park in the parking garage at the Double Tree on Broad Street – it’s almost directly across the street from the Academy of Music and you can save a couple of dollars on the parking fee if you show them your show tickets. (Word of warning – this parking garage is CASH ONLY.)
We found ourselves with some time to kill before the theater doors opened, so we hunkered down in a Starbucks close to the Academy – inside the Hyatt. It was quiet and there were nice, clean bathrooms – that’s perfect enough for me!
Lily is currently hopped up on anything involving princesses/fairies/magic/etc so she was already intrigued that the show involved witches – though unsure about whether or not they would be scary. She was familiar with many of the songs from Wicked thanks to years of long road trips and being subjected to music on Mom’s iPod throughout the drive.
The first few minutes – complete with a huge dragon moving and glaring from the top of the stage, several flying monkeys running amok and the loud opening number – had her on edge and I sat there praying we hadn’t wasted money on the tickets should we need to exit prematurely.
Thankfully, with each song, she got into the show more and more. By the time Glinda starting belting out the fan-fave “Popular” Lily was humming and be-bopping along, smiling bigger with every passing second. At one point she actually turned to me and said, “This. is. GREAT!!!” *PHEW*
After most shows we attend, Bob and I tend to rush out of the theater after the curtain call and make a beeline for our car. This time, however, we thought it would be fun to try something a little different and really make Lily’s night. We found our way to the stage door outside in the hopes of meeting some of the Wicked cast for autographs and just maybe a picture or two.
Luck out we did!
Lily met and got autographs from 4 of the play’s lead actors: Fiyero, Boq, Glinda and Elphaba.
Glinda (Jenn Gambatese) and Elphaba (Laurel Harris) were also kind enough to pose for a couple of pictures!
It was a fantastic night and now I’m lucky if I can wrestle my iPod away from Lily because she is constantly listening to Wicked songs.
Wicked National Tour – 2 thumbs up!
p.s. Our tickets were funded solely from our own piggy bank. All opinions are 100% my own.