11/26/2025
Players co-director Kerry Long shares this story about "Wicked" composer Stephen Schwartz and Players alum Justin Paul:
In honor of this weekend's "Wicked" movie premiere, I give you this photo of myself, David Roth, Justin Paul, Don Rickenback, Stephen Schwartz biographer Carol de Giere and the composer himself, in maybe December 2005 or January 2006, just a couple years after "Wicked" began it's Broadway run.
We had just produced the little seen Schwartz musical "Children of Eden" at Staples and local author Carol, who was at the time writing her biography of Schwartz, came to see the show. She had an interview scheduled with Stephen, specifically for the chapter on 'Children of Eden', but didn't know the show as well as David, Don and I did, haven't just spent three months on it. Could we come spend the day discussing the show with Stephen? Sure we could!
And Justin, still a student at the University of Michigan, had just written his first song cycle, "Edges", with his buddy Benj. We told Carol a little fib that Justin was the assistant music director on our show (in reality, his young brother had played the lead, but Justin did not work on the show) and told Justin to bring along a demo recording of "Edges."
The four of us spent hours with Carol and Stephen, talking about the show, listening to Stephen play cut songs from "COE", showing Stephen a photo book from our show (Stephen: "Can I keep this?" Me: "Uh... I guess?" It hadn't been for him.) and hearing Stephen talk about his process and career.
As the day grew to a close, Stephen excused himself for a moment and we pulled Justin in the other room. "Go get the demo! Give it to him now, before we leave!" Justin, being the impossibly polite person then that he still is now, was reluctant to be so forward, but eventually caved to our nagging. Stephen was touched and said that he would take a listen. Months passed. No word from Stephen.
Then, a pages long email, with specific, helpful and insightful feedback on each song, thus beginning a beautiful mentorship and now friendship between the two composers. The rest, as they say, is history. And the story goes on!
