Winnie Holzman is an award-winning American dramatist, screenwriter and poet who received a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk award for Best Book for a Musical for Wicked. For Television:  She created “My So-called Life” (Emmy nomination), wrote for “thirtysomething” and executive produced “Once and Again” starring Sela Ward. For Theater:  Birds of Paradise (with composer David Evans). For Film:  ‘Til There Was You. Ms. Holzman is a graduate of Princeton University and has a Masters in Musical Theater Writing from New York University. (Her teachers at NYU included Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Leonard Bernstein.) She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, actor Paul Dooley.  Their ten minute one act play entitled Post-its was recently published and is performed frequently across the country.

You discovered Gregory Maguire’s novel, “Wicked, the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” in paperback at a bookstore in New York in 1996, called your agent to acquire the rights to it but were disappointed to learn that Universal Pictures had the rights and had a screenplay in progress. So you put it on a shelf. When did you actually first read it and what was your impression?
I read it after Stephen asked me to read it, so we could discuss adapting it. I admire Gregory enormously but I’ve never read “Wicked” the way a normal person reads a novel. I read it like a jewel thief— casing the joint for what I might pilfer.

You and Stephen Schwartz had never worked together before. How and when did you meet?
We met the first time when I was a student at the NYU musical theatre program. Stephen was guest teaching for the day. Sometimes I like to imagine what it would be like if somehow an angel could have visited me back then and let me know that many years later I was going to write a Broadway show with this man, and that it was going to be a big hit. Maybe I would have smoked a little less.

The second time we met was at the Disney commissary, where a mutual friend — then a Disney executive — had asked us to lunch, hoping we might come with an idea for an animated musical together. Within about ten minutes we were bemoaning the lack of good ideas for musicals. Stephen said something like: “there are so few really great ideas—I mean great ideas. Like Wicked.”  I was stunned that he’d mentioned the novel—I’d never heard anyone mention it.  He then told me he’d been desperately trying to get the rights to turn it into a Broadway musical, but Universal wasn’t interested. We talked about "Wicked" for the rest of the lunch, to the chagrin (I’m sure) of our friend, reiterating what a shame it was that it would never be a Broadway musical. About six months later, Stephen called me out of the blue to tell me he’d gotten Universal to change their minds. He can be quite persuasive.

How would you characterize your working relationship?
Delightful. There was an odd kind of short hand from the beginning as though we’d known each other for years. I’ve found this to be true with fruitful collaborations… it feels like there’s history, even if you’ve just met. It’s like romantic love in that way. Writing with someone as brilliant as Stephen can be challenging— I felt like I had to run to catch up to him sometimes. But in the end we were well matched, in that we have a lot in common and yet are completely different. 

Early on, Stephen said, “Winnie is particularly good at writing female characters who are funny, real and believable, and that seemed to me to be particularly apt for a show like Wicked." That’s why he suggested you to producer Marc Platt at Universal, who knew your television work and immediately thought you were the right fit to tell the story of the two unlikely friends, Elphaba and Galinda. How is writing for a theatrical musical different than for television? What was the greatest challenge in doing so for you?
Though there are (obviously) differences, the greatest challenge was psychological. I had written basically one other musical, and I’d never adapted a novel—it was easy for me to feel out of my comfort zone. But the truth is that’s a valuable place to be, artistically. And in the end, characters are characters, writing is writing. It’s all about asking questions, allowing yourself to live with the anxiety of not knowing all the answers, remembering what the hell your story is, and slowly piecing together how to tell it.  

You studied acting out of college and have had numerous acting roles including a recurring role as a therapist on TV’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and a small part in the film, Jerry Maguire. How does your experience as an actor influence your work as a writer?
I put myself in the actors’ shoes as much as I can. When I’m writing dialogue I always speak the lines out loud, and I imagine what it would be like to actually have to play the scene. Actors need to have something cooking under the words. The more there is cooking underneath, the more fun the scene is to play, and the more fun it is to play, the better the acting will be. It all begins with the writing.

What is your favorite song in the Wicked and why?
"For Good." Because whenever I hear it, it’s new.  

You spent a fair amount of time in San Francisco when Wicked premiered in 2003. What do you like most about SF?
I spent most of that time either in Oz, or in Hell. I must visit San Francisco sometime.

Who and/or what inspires you?
Bob Dylan. Slumdog Millionnaire. I appreciate artists who go deep while remaining light.  

Is there something you need to have at hand or you need to do when you are working that helps your creative process?
Starbucks. I love my venti decaf nonfat triple cappuccinos.

What’s next for you?
A play. No singing. No dancing. All talking.


To hear the podcast with Wicked's Stephen Schwartz, click here.



Production photos: Joan Marcus
"Wicked" book image courtesy of gregorygaguire.com
Photo of Stephen Schwartz courtesy of stephenschwartz.com

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