Revisiting "For Good" with Sarah Donner

Next weekend I’m going to see Wicked (Part I) in the theater again because one of my best friends hasn’t seen it yet and I really think it needs to first be experienced on the big screen. Oz is an incredible spectacle of big, splashy sets and practical effects, and it’s just fun to feel completely immersed and a bit overwhelmed by it.

I’m a fan of the show, even though it’s a different creation from the novel it’s based on. I loved Maguire’s book when it came out and there’s just a lot that can’t be included in a stage musical, if nothing else because of time constraints. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about the film adaptation (of the musical adaptation of the novel adaptation of L. Frank Baum…) is that we get so much more of Oz, and more nods to Wicked the novel. The musical has to gloss over some of the socio-political stuff that was, for me, the meatiest stuff in the book. The film, because it divides each Act into its own movie, has some room to include more references to the political environment that helps to make the Wicked Witch.

Anyway, I didn’t intend to sit down and write a movie review post. If you’re into the stage show or the book, go see it! It’s a fun time and you might also cry seven or sixteen times.

The movie being out just reminded me of a delightful project my buddy Sarah Donner did in 2018 called Broadway Nerds Sing Broadway. It includes lots of really great humans I get to call friends - actually, I am buds with every single person on the record other than Kyle Stevens. Not because we have a blood feud or anything, I just haven’t met him. I’m sure Kyle is a great dude.

When Sarah asked me to do this project, and specifically this song, I was so thrilled. I think this tune is one of the greatest odes to friendship musical theater has ever produced, and I love the journey the two women in Wicked take to develop their love for one another. It’s complicated, it’s messy, it’s a friendship they fought for. And, as it turns out, they then have to leave one another behind.

Stephen Schwartz, composer and lyricist for the show, does a lyrical thing throughout Wicked that I really enjoy. He plays with multiple uses of the words “good” and “wicked” in several different songs. He juxtaposes The Good Witch and The Wicked Witch while toying with the broader theme that “goodness” and “wickedness” are hard to objectively pin down and subject to change with societal perception. This ultimately pays off beautifully when we come to this song, a final duet that Glinda (the Good) and Elphaba (the Wicked) sing to one another.

Because I knew you…I have been changed for good.

I have been changed “for good” (forever) and also, I have been changed “for good” (for the better). And gosh, isn’t that one of the most succinct and profound ways to tell someone who has shaken up and changed your life that you will never ever be the same because of their love.

Whew.

It was a joy to get to make this track with my friend Sarah. We’ve done it live a couple of times too and I have yet to make it through without almost crying, but I’m sure we’ll give it another shot next time we cross paths.

Here’s Sarah Donner and I performing “For Good” from Wicked. I hope it makes you think of That One Friend, and that, if you can, you tell them how they’ve changed you.

Xo,

J.

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