Cleavant Derricks in Wicked
When Cleavant Derricks stepped onto the stage of the Gershwin Theatre to take on the role of The Wizard in Wicked, it marked more than just another Broadway role. It was a homecoming—a return to the boards after years spent in television and pursuing his music career. And for Derricks, whose relationship with Broadway began in 1977 and who won his Tony Award in 1982, the feeling was unmistakable.
“It’s good to be back on the boards,” he said in a recent interview. “Once you’ve done Broadway, it never leaves you. It’s always in your heart. It’s a joy. It’s thrilling, and I’ll never get tired of it.”
The Pull of Broadway
For an actor like Derricks, whose formative years and greatest triumphs happened in theater, the pull of Broadway is profound. Despite success in television with Sliders and various guest appearances on shows like Roseanne, L.A. Law, and Moonlighting, despite establishing himself as a recording artist with his album Beginnings, despite exploring producing and writing—Broadway remained home.
“Though he doesn’t miss the cold weather in New York,” one interviewer noted, “the actor does miss Broadway theater.” And it showed in how Derricks spoke about returning to the stage. There’s a special energy in live performance that no other medium can replicate. The immediate connection with an audience. The knowledge that anything can happen. The thrill of getting it right night after night, or the challenge of recovering when something goes wrong.
Wicked, one of Broadway’s most successful musicals, offered Derricks a role perfectly suited to his talents and experience. The Wizard—a character who is both showman and fraud, powerful and powerless, larger than life and deeply human—requires an actor who can navigate complex layers while commanding the stage.
From Thunder Early to The Wizard
The journey from James Thunder Early in Dreamgirls to The Wizard in Wicked represents decades of artistic growth. Thunder Early, the role that won Derricks his Tony Award in 1982, was a force of nature—a character based on early R&B performers, full of sexual energy, charisma, and ultimately tragic self-destruction. The Wizard, by contrast, is a very different kind of showman: one who succeeds through illusion rather than raw talent, through manipulation rather than magnetism.
Both roles, however, require the same fundamental skill: the ability to make an audience believe. Whether it’s Thunder Early commanding a stage with his voice or The Wizard maintaining his elaborate deception across Oz, the actor must sell the performance within the performance. Derricks, with his decades of experience and his deep understanding of what it means to be an entertainer, brings authenticity to The Wizard’s artifice.
There’s a beautiful irony in casting Derricks—a genuinely talented singer and performer—as a character who must fake his way through being the great and powerful Oz. He understands both what real talent looks like and what skilled showmanship can accomplish even without it.
The Wicked Phenomenon
Joining the cast of Wicked means joining one of the most successful shows in Broadway history. Since its premiere in 2003, the musical has become a cultural phenomenon, spawning productions around the world and creating legions of devoted fans. For an actor, it’s both an honor and a challenge—the show has been running long enough that audiences come with expectations, but it’s also evolved and refined itself over thousands of performances.
The role of The Wizard, while not the show’s central character, is pivotal. He represents everything wrong with Oz—the corruption, the scapegoating, the maintenance of power through deception—while also being oddly sympathetic. He’s not a villain, exactly. He’s a man who got in over his head and kept digging, who made compromises that turned into crimes, who convinced himself that his lies were necessary for the greater good.
Playing that complexity requires an actor with range and nuance. Derricks brings both, along with the vocal chops to deliver the Wizard’s songs and the stage presence to hold his own against the powerhouse performances of Elphaba and Glinda.
The Broadway That Never Left
Despite his success in television, Derricks never really left Broadway—not in his heart. Throughout his Sliders years, he maintained connections to musical theater. He wrote songs. He developed musical projects, including pitching an original musical based on a true story from the mid-1800s, a love story set during America’s North-South divide.
“I love musicals, I love good music,” he said when discussing that project, “and I think this particular show has it, so I’m looking forward to developing it.”
That passion for musical theater remained constant even as his career took him into television. And it’s what makes his return to Broadway in Wicked feel so right. This isn’t an actor trying something new or chasing a paycheck. This is an artist returning to his first love, bringing everything he’s learned in the years away back to the stage where it all began.
The Craft of Live Performance
What Derricks brings to Wicked isn’t just talent—it’s decades of craft. He’s performed on Broadway in multiple shows across different eras. He’s worked with legends of the theater: Michael Bennett, Bob Fosse, Joseph Papp, Mike Nichols. He’s navigated the evolution of musical theater from the 1970s through today.
That experience manifests in subtle ways: in how he uses the stage, in his timing, in how he plays to different parts of the house, in his ability to keep a performance fresh night after night. Live theater demands a different kind of stamina and discipline than television or film. There are no second takes. There’s no “we’ll fix it in post.” There’s just you, the other actors, and a thousand people watching.
For Derricks, that’s exactly where he wants to be. “If there is a show that I feel I would really enjoy doing, I would certainly go back,” he said even before joining Wicked. The show proved to be exactly that—a production worthy of his return, a role worthy of his talents.
Full Circle
Originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, Derricks arrived in New York in 1977 with a dream. His Broadway credits accumulated: Your Arms Too Short to Box With God (following in the footsteps of his twin brother Clinton, who suggested he audition), But Never Jam Today, the 1977 revival of Hair, and Brooklyn. Then came Dreamgirls and the Tony Award that changed his career.
He was also Tony-nominated for his performance in Bob Fosse’s Big Deal, cementing his status as one of Broadway’s premier talents. Through it all, through the ventures into television and music recording, through the years of Sliders and everything that followed, Broadway remained his artistic home.
Now, performing The Wizard in Wicked, Derricks has come full circle. He’s back where his career began, but bringing everything he learned along the way. The young actor who arrived in New York in 1977 has become a seasoned performer with a wealth of experience across multiple media, all of which enriches his stage work.
The Magic of Theater
What makes theater special, Derricks suggests, is its immediacy and its truth. “Once you’ve done Broadway, it never leaves you,” he said. “It’s always in your heart.”
There’s a unique relationship between performer and audience in live theater. They create the experience together, each performance slightly different, each audience bringing their own energy. A joke that kills on Tuesday might land differently on Wednesday. A dramatic moment that brought tears on Thursday might need subtle adjustment for the Saturday matinee crowd. The actor must be present, responsive, alive to what’s happening in the moment.
For someone like Derricks, who grew up in a family where performing was part of their identity—his father was a preacher and gospel composer, his twin brother an accomplished performer—that live connection feels like coming home. Television can reach more people. Recording gives you control and permanence. But theater, live theater, is where the magic happens.
Looking Forward
Derricks’s return to Broadway in Wicked represents more than personal satisfaction. It’s a reminder that great talent finds its way back to where it’s most fully expressed. His journey from those early Broadway days through Dreamgirls, through television success with Sliders, through his music career, and back to the Gershwin Theatre stage isn’t a circle so much as a spiral—coming back to the same place but at a higher level, with more to offer.
“It’s a joy. It’s thrilling, and I’ll never get tired of it,” he said of being back on Broadway. After a career spanning decades, after exploring multiple facets of the entertainment industry, Derricks has found his way back to where he started—and discovered that Broadway, like home, is always there waiting.
The Wizard of Oz, after all, is a story about finding your way home. How fitting that playing that role brought Cleavant Derricks back to his.
