You probably already know that Wicked, the fantastical origin story of the L. Frank Baum book The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch, is one of the most anticipated movies of the year, but what you might not have known is that the writer of both the screenplay for the film adaptation and the book for the Tony award-winning Broadway musical it’s based on has had a fascinating career—full of angsty teens.
Wicked, which is adapted from the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, was written for the stage by Winnie Holzman, and the Broadway production debuted in 2003. Holzman may not be a household name, but her achievements are impressive—read on to learn all about them.
Winnie Holzman created My So-Called Life
Holzman earned a master’s degree in musical theater writing from NYU and wrote a number of plays in the ’80s. She soon moved into the TV writing world, becoming a staff writer for thirtysomething in 1990. After the show ended in 1991, Holzman created the cult teen drama My So-Called Life. The show debuted in 1994 and was notoriously canceled after just one season, even though it was critically acclaimed and earned the writer an Emmy nomination.
While My So-Called Life ran just 19 episodes, it had an outsized cultural impact thanks to its charismatic cast, sensitive handling of teen life and ’90s grunge style. The show introduced Claire Danes and Jared Leto to the world and in the role of the angsty protagonist, Danes proved that she was a powerhouse actress at just 14 years old.
30 years after My So-Called Life first aired, the show has developed a huge nostalgic appeal, and many younger viewers (some of whom weren’t even born when the show was on) have come to appreciate its uniquely nuanced take on teen life.
Holzman’s path from high school hallways to the Land of Oz
After My So-Called Life’s premature cancellation, Holzman wrote the 1997 film ‘Til There Was You. The rom-com failed to perform at the box office, and she didn’t write another movie until the opportunity arose to adapt her popular play for the upcoming Universal Pictures film Wicked.
Holzman then reunited with her thirtysomething and My So-Called Life producers Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz when she served as a writer and producer on the family drama Once and Again. In its time, the show, which followed a single mom navigating the ups and downs of family life and romance, found more mainstream success than My So-Called Life, and ran three seasons from 1999 to 2002.
Holzman’s next project was adapting Wicked for the stage in collaboration with Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the music and lyrics. In a 2003 interview that’s never been published online until now, she described what drew her to the project, saying, “The excitement for me was being able to take a story that people feel they know so well and say to them, ‘There’s something about this story that you never thought about, and what if you thought about it from this angle?’”
The multitalented writer called the story of Wicked “mind-expanding” and said it was the rare instance where adapting a novel into a musical made perfect sense. While My So-Called Life and Wicked may on the surface seem pretty different, theater was Holzman’s first love, and there are surprising commonalities between the two stories.
As she put it, “I find that something I like to write about is looking at people that you might want to dismiss, but instead you decide to explore them. This was the perfect story for me to do that.” Whether she’s writing about teen girls or witches, it’s clear that Holzman has a deep empathy for misunderstood feminine archetypes.
Other projects by Winnie Holzman
Wicked became a huge hit, and 21 years later, the musical is still running, making it one of the most successful Broadway shows of all time. The fact that Holzman was brought back to pen the screenplay for the upcoming Wicked movie (and its sequel coming in 2025) is a testament to her singular voice—you couldn’t have the play without her.
Holzman has also returned to TV since Wicked. In 2010, she cocreated Huge, a teen show set at a weight-loss camp, with her daughter, Savannah Dooley, but like My So-Called Life, it only lasted one season. She then served as a writer and executive producer on Cameron Crowe’s music-themed show Roadies in 2016, but this too was canceled in its first season.
In addition to Wicked, Holzman has written a number of smaller-scale plays, often working in collaboration with her husband, actor Paul Dooley (who’s known for his role as the dad in Sixteen Candles). Holzman has also sometimes appeared in front of the camera, with small parts in her shows My So-Called Life and Once and Again as well as shows like Roswell, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Comeback and movies like Jerry Maguire and You People.
From cult shows to Broadway blockbusters, Winnie Holzman has a writing resume like no other, and knowing that Wicked shares DNA with My So-Called Life only makes us more excited to see it.
