Ariana Grande performed the closing number for Wicked: One Wonderful Night itself, and it turned out to be one of the special’s most memorable moments.
Executive producer Ben Winston revealed at an FYC event on the Universal lot in early June that when Grande asked him during a Zoom call how he planned to end the show, he had no answer ready.
“I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it,” he admitted he told her.
Grande immediately shot down the idea of closing with a rendition of Few happy/happy days are here again, the iconic duet associated with Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand.
She sent him a video of the scene.
“She immediately looked it up and she texted the video. We watched it together at the same time and I thought, ‘This is great. What a great message to end it on,'” Winston recalled.
Music director Stephen Oremus explained the care that went into realizing Grande’s vision with co-star Cynthia Erivo.
“We reconstructed the whole arrangement that Judy and Margaret noted for tone, and it was really just so emotional and so beautiful,” he said, adding that the choice to close with something outside Evil Catalog felt right given the material’s deeper connections.
“Having something refreshing that wasn’t from Evil was somehow connected to the whole Judy Garland of it all.”
He described the ending as taking “everyone out in such a positive, beautiful way.”
Winston, whose credits include The Late Late Show and Grammy Awardssaid the guiding philosophy behind the entire special was to honor the old-school black format.
“What we tried to do is just make it a real variety special in the best way,” he said, mixing comedy sketches, musical performances, choreography and never-before-seen footage.
“The team was really just trying to make a real, old-school take that people would remember for years to come.”
