'Wicked' welcomes a pioneering good witch, Brittney Johnson - New York Amsterdam News

“I do see things shifting, and I am very optimistic about the future,” Johnson says. “Because specific conversations are starting to happen now, people’s eyes are being opened in ways that they never had been before, either because they never needed to be, or because they just didn’t know what they didn’t know.”

“I think it’s something that, especially for little Black kids that come and feel the energy that’s being given to Glenda — somebody that looks like them — it might not be something that they experience from the world in their real life,” she says. “Seeing someone that looks like you being loved is so important to see.”

Lindsay Pearce, her co-star as Elphaba, says Johnson is someone “obviously born for this” and says she’s never seen anyone work harder. She describes Johnson as gracious, fun and goofy. Johnson’s other Broadway credits include “Les Misérables,” “Motown the Musical,” “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” and opposite Glenn Close in “Sunset Boulevard” and as a guest in Kristin Chenoweth’s Broadway concert show, teaming up with the original Glinda. She has been connected to “Wicked” since 2018, moving up from ensemble to Glinda understudy, to Glinda standby. She was onstage as Glinda when the pandemic shut down theater in 2020, but only temporarily.

Johnson grew up in Maryland close to Washington. Her mom said she was singing before she was talking. “She said that I was a drama queen from when I was a child,” Johnson says, then laughing adds: “I don’t agree.” What about being the first Black Glinda? Was it on her horizon? “It wasn’t out of my realm of possibilities for me that I could be if the world allowed it,” she answers. “But after five, 10 years of not seeing any movement in that direction, I think you do start to put aside that specific dream.”

Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)

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