Composer Stephen Schwartz on how that electric ‘Wicked’ cameo came to be

🚨🚨🚨Warning: This story contains major spoilers for “Wicked.”

“Wicked” officially hit theaters Nov. 22, more than 21 years after the Broadway musical of the same name opened at the Gershwin Theatre.

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have officially stepped into the shoes of the Broadway stars who originated the roles, Idina Menzel’s Elphaba and Kristin Chenoweth’s Glinda — and they received their blessing both on and off the screen.

Chenoweth and Menzel attended the Nov. 9 premiere of the film in Los Angeles and posed side-by-side with Grande and Erivo.

And after years of speculation of how and if Menzel and Chenoweth would be involved in the production, the film’s release confirms that the actors make cameos in the adaptation.

Chenoweth and Menzel’s cameo involves a few bars of new music written by Stephen Schwartz, the composer of the Broadway musical, and a sweet moment between Elphaba, Glinda and the actors who originally played them.

“That was a really, really special day for us, because it felt like we were being knighted by the queens,” Erivo told Willie Geist for Sunday Sitdown. “They’ve been so wonderful and supportive. So many words of wisdom. So many words of encouragement, and on a constant basis.

“I got three video messages from Kristin and a bunch of different voice notes from Idina,” she added.

Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth’s ‘Wicked’ cameo, explained

Menzel and Chenoweth’s cameo occurs toward the end of the film, during Glinda and Elphaba’s memorable duet, “One Short Day,” which follows the friends as they visit the Emerald City for the first time to meet the Wizard.

During the song, Elphaba and Glinda stop for a spectacle called Wizomania, which gives a glossy and glittery retelling of how the Wizard managed to take power in Oz.

That moment is expanded on in the 2024 film with a new song and dance performed by two women called the Wise Ones.

The two Wise Ones are played by Menzel and Chenoweth. Each gets their moment in the spotlight and sings about a prophecy involving the Grimmerie, a spell book.

According to the prophecy, a powerful figure will lead Oz, distinguishable by their ability to read the Grimmerie. By the end of the Wise Ones’ song, that powerful figure is revealed to be the Wizard of Oz (though the ending of “Wicked: Part 1” calls his authenticity into question).

Schwartz tells TODAY.com that they had “all sorts of ideas” about how Chenoweth and Menzel could be in the film.

“We wanted, obviously, to honor Kristin and Idina by having them be in the movie,” he says.

Some of those ideas were Chenoweth playing Glinda’s mother, or Chenoweth and Menzel appearing as teachers at Shiz University, the fictional college where Glinda and Elphaba meet.

At the same time, Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, who wrote the book for the “Wicked” musical and the screenplay for the 2024 film, were working on expanding the song “One Short Day” already.

“We wanted to expand ‘One Short Day’ to show more of the propaganda that the Wizard was disseminating and really understand better this magic book — the Grimmerie, what is that? Because it figures so significantly in the plot,” Schwartz says.

It was none other than director Jon M. Chu who connected the dots between Menzel and Chenoweth and the “One Short Day” expansion.

“‘Why don’t we just make them two wise women of Oz, and it can be Kristin and Idina?’” Schwartz recalls Chu saying.

“And then of course we were able to tailor the number to have Easter egg tributes to their performances in the show,” Schwartz adds.

Easter eggs within an Easter egg

In addition to recognizing Chenoweth and Menzel, fans of “Wicked” will also likely clock certain moments of their performance as winks to their legacies as Glinda and Elphaba.

During the vocal arrangement written for them, both Menzel and Chenoweth hit some of their signature notes. Menzel sings the signature “Oh!” riff heard at the very end of “Defying Gravity.”

Meanwhile, “Kristin has to do her soprano,” Schwartz says. “She hits a high D flat.”

The two Wise Ones also seem to have a bit of a rivalry, which “satirizes the press at the time when they tried to make (Chenoweth and Menzel) into rivals,” Schwartz adds. (For a bit of “Wicked” history, both Menzel and Chenoweth were nominated for best performance by a leading actress in a musical at the 2004 Tonys, which Menzel won.)

“There’s a wonderful moment where Ariana is about to hit a high note, and Kristin puts her hand over her mouth,” Schwartz adds.

The whole number is “one big Easter egg,” Schwartz says.

Schwartz and Holzman even make an appearance in the scene.

Filming “One Short Day” and being part of a scene that had Chenoweth, Grande, Menzel and Erivo all together was “emotional,” Holzman says.

At the end of the cameo, Chenoweth and Menzel stand next to Grande and Erivo, respectively, and look affectionately at the actors playing the role they originated. Menzel even fixes the hat Erivo wears as Elphaba.

“It was that kind of, ‘Pinch me, is this really happening?’” Holzman says. “Those four women are very extraordinary women and artists and they all really admire and respect each other deeply.”