On Sunday, Cynthia Erivo hosted the 2025 Tony Awards while knee deep in Wicked promo. While Broadway knows Erivo as one of its most impressive vocalists, the rest of the movie-theater-going public knows her as Elphaba, the very green star of Wicked and the upcoming Wicked: For Good. Though the second installment doesn’t hit theaters until November, Erivo and her co-star Ariana Grande are already back in the publicity trenches, and whoever is in charge of the Tonys seems to have gotten the memo. Let’s count all the times it came up, shall we?
The first reference came minutes into the show’s opening, as Erivo and Oprah Winfrey reenacted the intimate finger-hold Erivo shared with Grande during last year’s press tour. Arriving center stage, Erivo quickly dropped a reference to the Wizard of Oz in her opening monologue, adding, “As they apparently say in a very fertile piece of intellectual property, ‘There’s no place like home.’” I wouldn’t exactly call that subtle, but at least she didn’t say it with a ruby-red slipper on her back.
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Elsewhere in the evening’s introduction, Erivo threatened to cut off any long-winded acceptance speeches with a clip of her singing. “I’ve been known to cast a few spells in my time,” she warned. Get it? Witches! And in case that wasn’t enough, Kristin Chenoweth, who originated the role of Glinda on Broadway, walked onstage to the tune of “Popular.”
Remember: We’ve got five months to go until Wicked: For Good drops, so this is only the beginning. For Shiz’s sake, brace yourselves.
