Wicked touches down at Kansas City's Music Hall for a 17-date, 24-show run from Aug. 12 through Aug. 30, with tickets ranging from $68 to $231. It's the sixth time the blockbuster musical has played the local Broadway series since 2008, and this trip carries a personal footnote: Overland Park native Hayley Podschun, who once starred as Glinda with the Wicked touring company for 13 months, will probably miss the show entirely because she's busy leading Legally Blonde at a theater just down the road.
According to The Kansas City Star, the tour's move into town is already underway, with company manager Steve Quinn set to arrive Monday to oversee setup as the production transitions from its Minneapolis engagement. Quinn oversees payroll, cast and crew travel and accommodations, and local box-office work for the tour, the Star reports.
A Company Manager Who Knows the Route Well
This marks the fourth time overall Quinn has been in Kansas City with Wicked, and he's served as the show's company manager for 21 years, per the same report. PNC Broadway officials say the tour's previous Kansas City engagements have drawn a combined 265,000 attendees. Quinn, who worked with Podschun years earlier on the Hairspray national tour, has called her "a natural-born Glinda."
Miller-Marley Roots Behind Broadway's Glinda
Podschun trained as a youth at Overland Park's Miller-Marley School of Dance and Voice, a studio operated for 60 years by founder Shirley Marley, who also directed the Kansas City Chiefettes and choreographed for Starlight Theatre. From there, Podschun's career moved quickly: she made her Broadway debut in The Sound of Music at age 12, later played the title role in the off-Broadway musical Freckleface Strawberry, and spent three years with Hairspray across its national tour, movie and Broadway production.
Landing the role of Glinda took six auditions spread across six years, the Star reports. Once cast, Podschun starred as Glinda with the Wicked touring company for 13 months, opposite her longtime best friend, Jennifer DiNoia, who played Elphaba.
Legally Blonde Keeps Her Off Music Hall's Guest List
These days Podschun plays the lead in New Theatre \u0026 Restaurant's production of Legally Blonde in Overland Park, which opened July 2 and runs through Sept. 6. The dinner theater has been recognized as the nation's top dinner theater by USA Today, as noted by BroadwayWorld.
Podschun has said she wanted to play Glinda herself one day, a wish that dates back to when she saw Wicked during an early preview at New York's Gershwin Theatre in early October 2003. She returned to her hometown with the touring production for three weeks in October 2013, and she's now lived in New York for nearly 20 years. Podschun has said performing Wicked at Music Hall brought her full circle, even though her Legally Blonde commitments will likely keep her out of the audience this time around.
Two Decades of Breaking Broadway Records
Wicked officially opened on Broadway on Oct. 30, 2003, and 23 years later it remains the fourth-longest-running show in Broadway history, having been seen by more than 15 million people. It's the second highest-grossing Broadway musical ever behind The Lion King, with more than $1.85 billion in cumulative Broadway gross since its debut, according to Wikipedia. For the week ending Dec. 29, 2024, it became the first show in Broadway history to gross over $5 million in a single week, pulling in $5.037 million across nine performances, per Broadway News. The 2024 film adaptation grossed $114 million domestically in its opening weekend, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with Wicked: For Good following the next year.
The Art Deco Hall Ready for Its Close-up
Wicked takes the stage at Music Hall, 301 W. 13th St. in Kansas City. The run is presented by the American Theatre Guild, which formally announced Wicked as the finale of its 2025-26 PNC Broadway in Kansas City season back in February 2025, as reported by BroadwayWorld.
According to the National Endowment for the Arts, 38 percent of U.S. adults reported attending a live arts event in July 2022. A National Endowment for the Arts report says that since 2017, its survey has shown declines in many forms of arts activities, including attendance at live, in-person performances.
The musical tells the backstory of the witches from The Wizard of Oz and runs 2 hours 45 minutes with a 15-minute intermission. The Star reports that seats remain available for most performances of the 17-date run.
