Peddie students recently traveled to see “Wicked” at the Gershwin Theatre on September 25, the first Broadway trip of the school year. As one of the longest-running Broadway productions in history, “Wicked” incited much interest and excitement in Peddie students. Eager students submitted their names through a lottery system that selected over 100 fortunate students to attend.

One of the lucky students who received a ticket, Seohyung Lee ’23, shared that she was extremely enthusiastic about attending because she had “always wanted to watch ‘Wicked’ since [she] was a kid.” She was “super grateful when Peddie offered free Saturday Night Activities tickets to go see the show.”

Even Claire Chen ’24, a Peddie student who already watched the musical, entered her name in the lottery system simply because “hearing the music live in the theater was a unique experience.” Chen ’24 also reflected that “watching it again on the Peddie culture trip helped me notice details I hadn’t seen before, as well as connections to concepts learned in history class, like the dictator’s playbook.”

The musical follows the lives and perspectives of Elphaba and Glinda, two witches famously known from “The Wizard of Oz,” and explores their unexpected friendship. The show begins with the celebration of Elphaba’s death, but viewers soon find that not everything is as it seems.

The show remarkably introduces twenty-one musical numbers over two acts and a showtime of 2 hours and 45 minutes. Fan favorites among the Peddie students included “Defying Gravity,” the closing musical number of Act I. An anonymous junior student “really enjoyed the song because it was breathtaking and just beautiful, especially since Elphaba and Glinda sang together.”

Peddie’s annual fall trip to Broadway was a success for the students who were able to see such an iconic show and was a perfect way for students to spend a September weekend.