Beautiful piece, Jamie, with lots of thought-provoking insights and questions.
As a musical theatre high belter, I have a very complicated relationship with Wicked. Elphaba was my dream role for years, but the casting office (cough cough TELSEY cough cough) treated me (and most of the other hopefuls who flooded their halls) like shit pretty much every time I auditioned for them. Not to mention, even as they were casting one of the most feminist musicals ever to hit Broadway, they were enabling sexual predators on their own staff, covering for them as they destroyed the blossoming Broadway careers of young actors who refused to be assaulted by their casting directors in the bathrooms of gay bars. The only time they actually called me in for Elphaba - a role I was undeniably perfect for - was the result of me sleeping with someone who was tight with one of the casting directors there. Telsey Casting is the only office that I experienced a casting director or associate literally not look up at me ONCE from the moment I entered the room to the moment I exited. I remember going to a hugely popular vocal coach known for training future Elphabas, and he told me that I made the songs sound too easy, that the sound they were looking for at Telsey was one that made the audience think Elphaba might bust her vocal cords from singing so hard. He showed me out to make it look and sound harder, and told me to do that for my Elphaba auditions from then on. It made singing the songs feel absolutely awful. Took the joy out of it entirely.
For me, Telsey Casting came to represent the ways that capitalism and patriarchy corrupt and distort even the most inspiring and uplifting of stories by making the process of trying to tell them ruthless and inhumane, and the bad taste they left in my mouth infuses how I feel about Broadway in general. I haven't seen the movie yet for that reason. I'm sure I will. I've heard great things. But the whole experience of engaging with the Broadway production and their casting office is one of the most demoralizing things I've gone through in my career.
