The Play “Wicked” Is Coming to the Overture Center July 9-27: Fulfilling a Life-Long Dream
Above: Jada Temple as Nessarose and Nicolas Garza as Boq in the National Tour of WICKED, photo by Joan Marcus
Below: Jada Temple
By Jonathan Gramling
The performing arts got a hook in Jada Temple — who plays Nessarolse in Wicked, which is coming to Overture — at an early age
“When I was four-years-old, I performed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Temple recalled. “I went to a performing arts elementary school where they had a Shakespeare program. My teacher was a performer at The Old Grove in San Diego where I am from. I studied Shakespeare with her and our other teacher there all throughout elementary school. So I got started very young. My teeth were sunk in when I was very young. I was only four-years-old, but I was like, ‘I think I really enjoy doing this.’ It was very serious. It was probably more serious than your average elementary school would be when it came to their approach to the performing arts. I went to performing arts schools all throughout my life. When I was 18-years-old, I decided I was going to go to music theater school in New York City. I got my BFA in musical theater.”
Temple had to pay her dues before she hit the lights of Broadway. She started with off-Broadway.
“I worked with an amazing woman called Holly-Ann Devlin,” Temple said. “She did my first off-Broadway credit in a show called Speakeasy.”
And then in order to support herself — and perhaps see the world — Temple worked on Virgin Voyages cruise ships for a couple of years.
“Working on the cruise ship definitely lent itself to me having a positive experience now,” Temple said. “Honestly, that was a thousand times more difficult. When you were on ship — especially if you are at sea — you don’t have access to anything, anywhere. There would be plenty of times where I would be like, ‘Oh gosh, I really need a band-aid.’ And if I didn’t have any in my room and it was the middle of the night and the medical office was close, I couldn’t just run to CVS and get a band-aid.”
Temple came back to New York and performed in Oscar at the Crown before she got her first big break with Wicked.
“Wicked was always my dream,” Temple exclaimed. “To be a part of it is unbelievable. I definitely didn’t have an idea of who I would play. I was always was like, ‘I feel like I’m going to be in this show, but I don’t know in what capacity.’ And over the years, I’ve auditioned for quite a few different roles. But last year when I started auditioning for this role, I definitely got a feeling that I never had before and I thought, ‘This is it.’
And it was it as Temple is playing Nessarose in the touring Wicked production. Nessarose is the younger sister of Elphaba, who is one of the main characters who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Nessarose is very complex,” Temple said. “It’s not as straight forward as you would think. I definitely found that in the rehearsal process through our amazing director Lisa. You come at it from one angle, but there are so many things to consider about her and her motives and what really drives her to do the things that she does. She is very complex, for sure.”
Nessarose is someone who is dealing with her own unique inner demons in the show. She is confined to a wheelchair since birth due to her mother taking a medication-poison to prevent Nessarose’s skin turning green like sister.
“One of the most fascinating things about her — and we talk a lot about this a lot in the rehearsal process — is she is ultimately the only person in the world of Wicked who feels sorry for her for being in the wheel chair,” Temple said. “No one else comments on it. No one else makes her feel bad about it or looks down on her for it. She is the one who self-inflicts and feels sorry for herself and assumes because she feels bad for herself that other people look down on her. But they don’t at all. It’s almost like this self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Nessarose is the Wicked Witch of the East who in The Wizard of Oz is killed near the beginning as Dorothy’s house falls on her in Munchkin Land.
“She becomes the Wicked Witch of the East during the time that we don’t really see,” Temple said about the play. “In between the songs Defying Gravity and Thank Goodness, some time passes. Nessarose is doing whatever she is doing in the year or so that passes. She’s trying to save the monkeys and trying to save the animals and going against the Wizard. She’s just making a big stink all around, which is not so good for Mr. Thropp’s family. And then because her journey goes so far West, Elphaba’s journey, it really does no good for their family. I think that’s where things start to get really messy for Nessarose.”
In Temple’s view, while Wicked is a fabulous show with beautiful costumes, dancing and singing, there is an underlying message.
“We all know what Wicked is about,” Temple said. “But then when you think about it, what is it about? Going back to what I was saying about the way that Nessarose feels about herself in the chair, I think for me, it is about self-acceptance. It is about accepting yourself the way that you are. I think just owning who you are and walking through the world with pride. When you don’t accept yourself, you can end up putting that on other people and not realizing that you are the reason why things are going a certain way in your life. I think if you look towards accepting yourself and owning who you are and loving who you are even if there are some things about yourself that you don’t necessarily like. And remember, it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to go against the grain. Just accept who you are and wear it with pride.”
Temple takes the grind of touring in stride. Perhaps it was the years spent performing on cruise ships that prepared her for the constant moves of touring.
“For me, I am very adventurous and I love to travel,” Temple said. “Tour life really agrees with most of me and who I am at my core because I love to be on the go. I love to travel. I love to see new places. I love to meet new people. So it agrees with me. The most difficult thing, I guess, would be finding a routine in every city. If you like to do a particular type of workout class and it’s not available in a certain city, then it’s like, ‘What do you do?’ I almost sort of enjoy the agenda sort of feeling, put my life together every few weeks when we do arrive at a new city. It can be a bit challenging. But all and all, we do ultimately like the comforts. We stay in nice places. And we have each other as well. We’re all very good friends. I haven’t found too many great challenges so far.”
Temple hopes that people will turn out in force to see Wicked during its 18-day stay in Madison.
“Wicked is so much fun,” Temple exclaimed. “It’s one of the greatest musicals ever written. There is no way you will have a bad time. The music is amazing. The dancing and the singing are world-class, top-notch. And the story is unbelievably heart-warming and will leave you feeling so excited about life. Hopefully it will leave you feeling like you want to come back.”
It’s been 15 years since Wicked came to Madison. Time to get reacquainted with the enchantment of Wicked.
