Actress in Broadway's "Wicked" Shares Her Unique Journey

Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Jessica Vosk, Actress in Broadway's "Wicked" to share her unique journey to Broadway and why she believes Elphaba, the character she portrays, is a great role model for young women.

1/22/19 #2189

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We are pleased to be joined by Jessica Vosk, who is performing in Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre on 51st Street And you play? Elphaba. Who is Elphaba in Wicked? Ooh. Elphaba... Because there are two witches here right? There's two witches. There's the Good Witch... Well there's technically Glinda... The Good Witch? The Good Witch of the... Whatever? Whatever. And... And you are the... I'm Elphaba, who ends up being known as the Wicked Witch of the West. And... but the story begins as, you know, two young girls going to school together. I'm the different one. I'm the green one. I'm the one who is walking around stage being bullied and ridiculed and she sort of finds a way to come into her own. She's got her own ideas. She's smart. She's not the most eloquent speaker. She puts her foot in her mouth a lot. Hmm. I can relate to that. Real life? Yeah. You? Yeah, yeah. Seriously? I know you'd never think that about me. I would not think that. But it's a lot that I actually relate to. And it's a very special role to play because it is about a young girl who doesn't exactly know how to be herself yet, because she's been sort of taught by everybody else that she's the bad one. And in the end, she's not the bad one. So that's, in a nutshell, a little bit about her. How the heck did you get to Broadway? The word on the street is it was relatively unconventional. What does that mean? I would say I have a very weird story. I thought as a kid that I would do the usual musical theatre route. Go to school, become a musical theater major. I did finance in Wall Street out of college. So you admit that? I admit it. If this is a therapy session, I did that. Did not love it? Did not love it? Did not love it. I was really good at it. You know I knew my way around a Bloomberg terminal and around a lot of, you know major companies, and could hold my own, 8:00 to 6:00, in a suit every day, and... There's a "but" coming? But... but it stressed me out in a way that I had never experienced in my life. And at the time, I refused to see theater, I refused to talk to people in theater, I refused to sing, I refused to admit that there was something wrong. And it manifested in a huge, anxious way. Panic attacks. Anxiety. Hmm. The... I didn't know what was going on. And about three years into that job and, you know, several promotions in..."