Some Broadway musicals, such as the recent Lennon, about the late Beatles icon, start out their life with bad omens, open on the Great White Way to rotten reviews and then promptly fold. A few start out in much the same way and, as if by some sort of magic, end up flourishing.
Straight into the latter category goes
Wicked, a garish and loud carnival of witches and broomsticks drawn from a book that is meant to be a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. When it opened in New York in October 2003 it was widely written off as a flop. Today it is a worldwide phenomenon.