Stephanie J. Block felt “protected by rejection” early on in her career. The 51-year-old actress played the role of Elphaba in early workshop productions of the hit musical ‘Wicked’ in 2000 before established star Idina Menzel was drafted in to take the show to Broadway in 2003 and even though she was devastated to lose out on the part, she had to “put her ego aside” to learn from the experience. Speaking on the Musicals Magazine podcast, she said: “All I was meant to do was go to the Universal lot with [composer] Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman who wrote the libretto. I would sing three s…
