Alexandra Billings is returning to Broadway.
The trans activist and star of Amazon’s Transparent — which will debut its two-hour musical series finale on Friday — is set to take on the role of Madame Morrible in the long-running production of Wicked, with performances set to start Jan. 20, 2020.
Billings, who played Davina on Transparent, has appeared in a number of TV series, including How to Get Away With Murder, Goliath and Grey’s Anatomy. She was last seen on Broadway in 2018 in the comedy The Nap. Her other theater credits include S/He & Me, Seussical, Berlin Circle, A Doll’s House, Trojan Woman, Gypsy, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Hamlet! The Musical! and Time to Burn.
As an activist for LGBTQ rights, Billings has received the HRC Visibility Award, Rainbow Spirit Award, After Dark Award and Joseph Jefferson Award and has been inducted into the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame. She also serves as a professor of theater arts at the University of Southern California.
As fans of Wicked are well aware, the show is a reimagined version of Frank L. Baum’s classic tale The Wizard of Oz, told from the perspectives of the “good” witch and the “bad” witch. It features an original score by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman, adapted from the novel by Gregory Maguire.
Billings will join a cast that currently includes Hannah Corneau as Elphaba, Ginna Claire Mason as Glinda, Michael McCormick as The Wizard, Jake Boyd as Fiyero, Riley Costello as Boq, Jamie Jackson as Doctor Dillamond and Gizel Jiménez as Nessarose.
Wicked has been playing since 2003 at Broadway’s Gershwin Theatre, where it has grossed north of $1.3 billion to date. Massive additional revenues from international productions and multiple tours place Wicked among the top-earning properties in the Universal stable. A film adaptation of the musical is slated for release in December 2021, with Stephen Daldry attached to direct.
