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For the last few weeks, Joseph Mendoza has been spending his evenings standing in the cold outside the Gershwin Theatre, trying his luck in a lottery to win a $25 ticket to the new Broadway musical Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.
He is just one of around 150 to 500 people on any given night, many of whom have already seen the show four or five times. On a recent Wednesday evening, Mr. Mendoza waited anxiously as the 25 names were randomly chosen, only to lose again.
"I'll keep trying until I see it," says Mr. Mendoza, a flight attendant for Northwest Airlines. "All my friends are talking about Wicked and trying to get tickets. It has the potential to be really big."
By any account, it already is. The new musical - about the lives of the two witches in Oz before Dorothy came along - is fast becoming the hottest show on Broadway. Nights in front of the theater resemble a rock concert, with screaming teenagers and groupies dressed in witch's hats. School groups are flooding the matinees. And the musical's soundtrack had the highest firstweek sales of any Broadway cast recording since Rent in 1996.
Its success is one of the few bright spots in an other-wise disappointing season on the Great White Way. Overall Broadway attendance is down 5% so far this year, many shows are playing to half-full...