Note: This article contains spoilers for Wickedin theaters now.
Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth may have passed the green and pink torches to Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande for the new Wicked movie, but that didn’t mean he was going to sit idly by.
Of course they were going to have a cameo in Oz.
Of course!
Menzel and Chenoweth, who created the roles of Elphaba and Glinda, respectively, in the Broadway production Wicked in 2003, have a fun episode in Wizomania when Erivo and Grande Elphaba and Glinda arrive in Oz — and the two of them wear suitably wacky dresses, imagined by costume designer Paul Tazewell.
He tells PEOPLE that he had extremely limited time with theater royalty, but he tailored their gowns with intent.
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“The question was how to make something theatrical?” says where he started his Wizomania scene. “How do I design something that will be theatrical in the context of a fantasy world? What will the citizens of Emerald City see as an interesting theatrical presentation? And then inspired by what Nathan Crowley was doing with the set design, which was to create this pop-up book that in a way comes to life. They are the goddesses of the story of Wizomania and represent the history of Oz.”
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Academy Award-winning costume designer, who has also created costumes for Broadway productions including Hamilton and Death becomes hertells PEOPLE that he had a vision of creating dresses that looked like Christmas trees made from folded book pages. He envisioned something from the 19th century that was very light and airy with a funky vibe—and definitely sparkly, because they were goddesses after all.
“We know Idina as Elphaba, but I wanted her to be ‘light’ and Kristin to be ‘dark,'” she says of making Idina’s dress light pink and Kristin’s purple and changing their color scheme.
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“They’re both still quite bright chromatically and shimmery, but I tried to give them opposites,” he says. “It was a mad race to get everything because everything came together very quickly. We worked tirelessly to put it all together and make it happen. I flew to New York and prepared and then came back [to London]but we made it happen and it was really wonderful.”
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Original Wicked Stars Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel pose with Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo at the film’s LA premiere
Menzel and Chenoweth shared several behind-the-scenes photos from their “one short day” on set filming their cameo, which included glimpses of their gowns created by Tazewell and his team. Menzel shared the carousel, writing, “This was a special day. Sisterhood everywhere.” Chenoweth shared her own carousel of photos with the caption “the most magical time in the emerald city.”
The duo shared a post about the collaboration, writing a line from the film: “It was nice to see us, wasn’t it?”
On Nov. 27, the film’s Instagram shared a video of the two on set, writing, “The original Elphaba and Glinda return to Oz.”
Wicked is in theaters now. Take a behind-the-scenes look at the film with the new special issue of PEOPLE, available here.
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Source: HIS Education