The splashy new screen version of Broadway’s Wicked (releasing in movie theatres November 22) offers something that few movie musicals ever bother to do these days—that, in fact, few stage musicals even give us these days. And no, we’re not talking CGI animals and drastically extended running times.
The Wicked movie features the stage musical’s full overture. Even for veteran film orchestrator Jeff Atmajian, who penned the orchestrations for all of the film’s songs (and the overture), it was a rare opportunity. “You don’t get to do overtures as much these days,” Atmajian tells Playbill. The last time he got to score one was before Wicked even existed on stage, for 1999's South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut.
His long resume includes several movie musicals—including the 2023 live-action The Little Mermaid, 2018’s Mary Poppins Returns, and 2007’s Hairspray—and countless non-musical film scores (his IMDb lists 291 credits currently, and his Wicked credit isn’t even there yet). But, he says, Wicked was different. Atmajian says he’s never worked on a film project with quite this many songs.
But even with a stage score with more songs than your typical movie musical, this Wicked film is bigger in lots of ways compared to its Broadway counterpart. In fact, the musical has made its long-awaited journey to the screen as a two-parter (another installment releases next year), with director Jon M. Chu (along with screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox) dramatically expanding the script. The first part only covers the stage show’s first act, closing with the iconic, high-flying anthem “Defying Gravity.” And yet what runs a little over an hour on stage has become nearly three hours on screen.
More importantly to Atmajian, what is a 23-member ensemble in the orchestra pit at Broadway’s Gershwin Theatre has become a nearly-80-member group for the movie. Atmajian is no stranger to stage musicals’ smaller orchestras, sharing that in his youth he served as a one-man orchestra for a production of A Little Night Music at the piano, and then an entire string section on a keyboard for a staging of Company.
But even though he’s spent the majority of his career scoring for the screen, Atmajian’s not knocking those more modest stage orchestrations. “The stage is smaller,” he explains. “It’s more personal. You actually have live people in the room, so in some ways you get away with [smaller orchestras].” On screen, Atmajian says, things feel bigger, and the orchestra size has to help match that. But that doesn’t just mean placing additional instruments on top of the original orchestration.
“William Brohn [Wicked’s late original orchestrator] did a beautiful job,” Atmajian says, “but he had to conceive things a certain way for it to work with the smaller group. [Director] Jon [M. Chu] told me he wanted it cinematic, so I knew it needed to be full and glorious.” Atmajian’s larger ensemble includes a full string section and three players on each wind instrument, whereas the Broadway orchestration uses a small group of live strings augmented by keyboard string patches, and wind doublers that may have as many as four or five instruments available while only ever being able to play one at a time. Having more instruments means Atmajian has more proverbial crayons in his box.
Wicked on screen shows this off early with the aforementioned overture. Once it gets to Elphaba’s tinkly “Unlimited” theme, fans used to the Broadway cast album might just be gobsmacked at the dimension and space Atmajian’s orchestration brings to the table, deftly matching Chu’s sweeping aerial journey over a very colorful vision of Oz, the work of production designer Nathan Crowley. “I love that kind of thing,” he says of having the larger group. “It gives me space to add extra counter lines, textures—all these things that are so wonderful to do.”
Atmajian had seen the stage show before the film project came across his desk, albeit two decades earlier. That allowed him to start from scratch this time around, which he says was a secret weapon. It was also a specific request from Chu and what Atmajian calls “the Stephens,” meaning composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz and Stephen Oremus, the stage show’s arranger and music director who’s serving as executive music producer on the screen version. “Jon and the Stephens wanted me to bring my reaction to it, my take,” Atmajian says.
He got the purest version of that working on the music that is new for the screen version. Atmajian says he auditioned for the project with Elphaba’s first big number, “The Wizard and I,” which moviegoers will hear in this year’s release. But he made his biggest impression with a new song written for Glinda, played on screen by Ariana Grande. “I really responded to it musically—and Ariana’s voice,” he shares of the new song we’re not allowed to know much about yet (the song will debut with Wicked: Part Two next year). “I literally just had her singing. I thought I would start with that, because nobody had any expectation or association with it. Nothing had ever been done with it, so that was my way in—and it seemed to go pretty well!”
Big orchestras and sweeping, cinematic film scores are definitely Atmajian’s bread and butter, but the range of musical styles in Wicked’s score meant he couldn’t rely solely on that particular wheelhouse. In fact, he says the bouncy and comedy-heavy “Popular” might just be the work he’s most proud of in the finished film. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Stephens were maybe slightly wondering if I could bring a bit of vaudeville, in the right way, to that,” he says. “I hate sounding self-serving, but I rather liked at the recording sessions that I got the endorsement from both. They loved all the little colorful touches.”
Grande’s performance of the song, a comedic highlight for the character, is perhaps even more physical than original stage star Kristin Chenoweth’s staging. Grande really flexes her physical comedy muscles high kicking through the Shiz dormitory, dangling from a chandelier, and more. Atmajian says the biggest note Schwartz and Oremus had on his first draft of the song was several spots where the orchestra could accentuate what Grande is doing on screen—but Atmajian says he prides himself on making that happen seamlessly. “I don’t like when you just throw things in,” he explains. “I want anything that’s done to match the picture to sound like it should have been there anyway, rather than tacked on. It’s classier, more elegant.”
Ultimately, Atmajian says that what guided him most through the project was the strength of Schwartz’s score, which he holds in very high regard. “It might sound like a trite thing to say, but the music gave me the answers,” he says. “I don’t know how [Schwartz] came up with the music and the words. They’re all so interesting and inspiring, and his harmonies—they really speak to me.” But, he says, that also made him feel like the bar was raised on what he had to deliver.
“It asked for the best I could do,” he says. “Anything I might have done before, even if it was really great, I had to somehow find something just that little bit more magical.”
