From Good Witch to Gold
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Kristin Chenoweth can’t catch a break. “The other night this woman came up to me and started griping me up because I wasn’t on stage in “Wicked,” Kristin Chenoweth told me, some weeks after concluding her run as the good witch in that Oz-inspired Broadway show. “‘It’s 8:30!’ she said. ‘Glinda should not be on the street at 8:30!’ I was like, ‘I’m not in the show anymore. Calm down.'”
Ms. Chenoweth had been a hot commodity ever since she won a Tony Award for her Sally Brown in 1999’s revival of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” When “Wicked” became the smash hit of last year’s Broadway season, it certified her as one of the reigning queens of the musical comedy stage.
“Contrary to popular belief, Glinda was a very difficult part for me,”” she told me. “Comedy – everyone says, ‘Oh, it’s so natural for her.’ But I wouldn’t say by nature I’m necessarily funny – I have a sense of humor, but I’m also very serious. And I analyze my characters to death.”
This Friday, Ms. Chenoweth caps her breakout year and kicks off the coming season with her concert debut at Carnegie Hall. “I look back and I remember as a kid hearing my whole life about Carnegie Hall,” she told me. “I never even thought I’d get to visit Carnegie Hall, let alone perform there. It’s a little emotional for me. My parents are coming in. My aunt and uncle who live in Noble, Oklahoma, are coming. My voice teacher and mentor from Oklahoma City, I’m flying her in. I’m freaking out – in a good way.”
Ms. Chenoweth, 36, was born in Broken Arrow, Okla., and has been compared to everyone from Jeanette Mc-Donald and Judy Holliday to Cameron Diaz and Madonna. Two facts reporters never tire of are her height (south of 5 feet) and weight (less than 100 pounds). Anyone requiring a further primer on her career might want to drop by Carnegie Hall.
“I’m planning on doing – I hate to use those words ‘best of’ because that’s so retarded, but the best of what people want me to do,” she explained. That means something operatic – a reminder of her beginnings as a classically trained singer; “The Girl in 14G,” a number from her first CD, “Let Yourself Go;” something from her upcoming recording, tentatively titled “Songs I Grew Up On,” which will be a collection of country and spiritual tunes; a number from “The Music Man,” in which she played Marian in a 2003 television movie; and, of course, something from “Wicked.” In other words, a musical crash course in all things Chenoweth.
After she relinquished her dressing room at the Gershwin Theater, Ms. Chenoweth did take a little time to go back to her native Oklahoma. But for the past month her life has mostly been a menu of Manhattan multi-tasking. Two weeks in August were spent recording her CD – “I recorded my first album in five days,” she said. “I remember Audra McDonald saying to me, ‘Five days! It took me six months!’ So two weeks is a luxury.”
She also entered the recording studio to tape a voice for a new Disney animated film, “Rapunzel Unbraided.” In it, she co-stars with Reese Witherspoon, an actress often called her aesthetic twin. Ms. Witherspoon plays a modern-day Rapunzel. Ms. Chenoweth is a squirrel; not bad casting, considering her piping voice has always had a bit of Disney’s Chip ‘n’ Dale in it. (Chipmunks, yes, but the same idea.)
Ms. Chenoweth has never needed to look too far for work. (She famously landed her first New York audition.) Lately, however, she hasn’t had to look at all. Work persistently finds her, and not just in the form of productions that would like to cast her – though there are plenty of those. Instead, shows are being written specifically for her. This is a phenomenon that musical icons like Merman and Martin were quite at home with, but is almost never seen today.
Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan are busy finishing their follow-up to “The Producers,” a stage version of “Young Frankenstein,” and would like to see Ms. Chenoweth play the fiancee of Dr. Frankenstein, a part portrayed by Madeline Kahn on screen. “I think I’m just twisted enough to do it,” she said. (Ms. Kahn is one third of Ms. Chenoweth’s triumvirate of idols, she says; the other two are Julie Andrews and Dolly Parton.)
Composer Andrew Lippa and librettist David Lindsay-Abaire are building a new musical around the sexy, helium-voiced naif cartoon character Betty Boop. Ms. Chenoweth, confirming the obvious, says the match of part and actress would be “perfect.”
And there’s one other nascent producer who’s been courting the actress: Ms. Chenoweth herself. She’s developing a new musical with writer Lamar Damon called “Boots,” about an ex-showgirl from Vegas who moves to Texas with her new husband and takes over the local drill team.
“I gave up being a cheerleader in 11th grade to be a drill-team member,” Ms. Chenoweth explained. “What we do is dance at halftime. I remember our big routine was to ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ because our team was the Tigers. We were called the Tigettes. I did this number to ‘Ghostbusters,’ and I remember it was groundbreaking, because no one had ever done a theme. It was always pompoms or high kicks until then. My solo competition was to moonwalk to the theme of ‘Beverly Hills Cop.’ It scares me to death today to admit that.”
These projects may have to wait, however. Hollywood finally has begun to take notice. Having finished a “Pink Panther” prequel starring Steve Martin and begun work on “Rapunzel Unbraided,” Ms. Chenoweth will begin filming the Nora Ephron-directed big screen version of “Bewitched” in late September. In January, she will take on her first movie musical, “Asphalt Beach.”
“I feel before that I didn’t really open myself to film before,” she said of this rush of activity. “I didn’t even really seek it. I was so into my own path. I feel this is a new beginning, that there was that thing that just happened to me called ‘Wicked’ and now I’m starting a new chapter.”
Which makes it sounds like it might be a while before this thing called Kristin Chenoweth happens to Broadway again. “Not this season, but I’m hoping the next,” she said. She’s not the only one.