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Each Thursday, WFAE checks in with a local arts and entertainment reporter about things to do in Charlotte during the upcoming weekend.

Tony Award-Winning 'Wicked' Returns To Ovens Auditorium To Highlight Charlotte Weekend Events

Wicked

Talia Suskaer
Allison Bailey
Cleavant Derricks
Curt Hansen
Amanda Fallon Smith
DJ Plunkett
Sharon Sachs
Joan Marcus / Courtesy Blumenthal Performing Arts
Glinda the Good Witch faces off with Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Although Labor Day, marking the unofficial end of summer is over, there are still lots of events happening in the Charlotte area. "All Things Considered" host Gwendolyn Glenn and Jodie Valade, co-writer of WFAE’s arts and entertainment newsletter Tapestry, go through this weekend’s slate of events. One highlighted by "Wicked" coming to Ovens Auditorium and Historic Brattonsville’s annual festival to celebrate the heritage of local African Americans.

To hear the full conversation, listen to the audio above.

The Tony Award-winning "Wicked" is the first Broadway show in Charlotte in nearly two years. The musical gives viewers the backstory to the "Wizard Of Oz" and gives a good look at character motivations.

“You kind of understand these characters as people,” Valade said, “rather than one-dimensional names that you see in a movie.”

"Wicked" will be at the Ovens Auditorium until the middle of October.

Other events this weekend include:

“Together they’re (Trumpet Mafia) known for playing some unexpected arrangements that mix traditional jazz and hip-hop styles,” Valade said.

WFAE's weekly arts and entertainment email newsletter, Tapestry, will keep you in the loop on arts and culture in the Charlotte region.

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Gwendolyn is an award-winning journalist who has covered a broad range of stories on the local and national levels. Her experience includes producing on-air reports for National Public Radio and she worked full-time as a producer for NPR’s All Things Considered news program for five years. She worked for several years as an on-air contract reporter for CNN in Atlanta and worked in print as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun Media Group, The Washington Post and covered Congress and various federal agencies for the Daily Environment Report and Real Estate Finance Today. Glenn has won awards for her reports from the Maryland-DC-Delaware Press Association, SNA and the first-place radio award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
Jodie Valade has been a Digital News and Engagement Editor for WFAE since 2019. Since moving to Charlotte in 2015, she has worked as a digital content producer for NASCAR.com and a freelance writer for publications ranging from Charlotte magazine to The Athletic to The Washington Post and New York Times. Before that, Jodie was an award-winning sports features and enterprise reporter at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. She also worked at The Dallas Morning News covering the Dallas Mavericks — where she became Mark Cuban's lifelong email pen pal — and at The Kansas City Star. She has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University and a Master of Education from John Carroll University. She is originally from Rochester Hills, Michigan.