Pop star Ariana Grande is set to star in Universal’s big-screen adaption of the Tony Award-winning musical “Wicked.”
Announcing the news of her casting to her 274 million Instagram followers on Thursday, the Thank You, Next singer posted a carousel of images captioned “Thank Goodness.”
In one photo, the singer is seen on a video call with director Jon M. Chu (“In the Heights,” “Crazy Rich Asians”) and her co-star British actress Cynthia Erivo.
Grande also shared a picture of the flowers Erivo sent her, which included a note that read “‘Pink goes good with green.’ Congratulations, Miss A, the part was made for you; I look forward to sharing this musical journey with you.”
Co-starring in the movie, Cynthia Erivo is a Tony, Grammy and daytime award winner. The actress won these awards for her performance as Celie in the stage revival of “The Color Purple” and was recently nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, in National Geographic’s “Genius: Aretha.”
Erivo also confirmed starring on Wicked, in an Instagram carousel.
Among her posts was a bunch of flowers from Grande, with a note that read: “Dear Cynthia, honored doesn’t even begin to cover it. I cannot wait to hug you. See you in Oz.”
A prequel to The Wizard of Oz, Wicked tells an alternate version of events in OZ before Dorothy’s arrival.
The Wicked musical follows the misunderstood Elphaba, who later becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.
Grande and Erivo will be playing Glinda and Elphaba, respectively, in the musical written by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman.
Theatre news website Broadway World reports that Wicked is one of the most commercially successful musicals of all time. The musical made a whopping $14.8 million at the Broadway box office last year.
Frozen star Idina Menzel who won a Tony Award for playing Elphaba on Broadway, congratulated the pair in an Instagram post.
“Congrats to two amazing women,” she wrote. “May it change your lives for the better forever and ever as it has for us. So much love. @cynthiaerivo @arianagrande.”
Ariana Grande is no stranger to the Wicked world. In fact, the 28-year-old singer who starred in the 2008 musical “13” before becoming a household name performed “The Wizard and I” for ” A Very Wicked Halloween: Celebrating 15 years on Broadway.”
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