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Wicked’s Jenna Bainbridge on Reframing Nessarose’s “Tragic” Disability
Twenty-one years in, she’s the first disabled actor to play Elphaba’s sister, who uses a wheelchair, on Broadway.
It’s arguably the most ableist scene in a show that calls Nessa a “tragically beautiful” and dependent villain (eventually known as the Wicked Witch of the East). Although Bainbridge says nothing in the script has changed since she joined Wicked, her lived experience brings an honesty to Nessa that makes her desire to walk easier to understand. What I love about Nessa is that she has a little bit of both, but she also has a hell of a lot of her own issues that aren’t related to disability — her relationship with her parents, with her sister, with school.
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