...רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן קׇרְחָה אָמַר: אֶסְתֵּר — יְרַקְרוֹקֶת הָיְתָה, וְחוּט שֶׁל חֶסֶד מָשׁוּךְ עָלֶיהָ.
...Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa said: Esther was greenish (i.e., sallow with olive undertones), but a thread of lovingkindness was strung around her, with ethereal beauty radiating from her personality as well as her physical attributes.
Setting: Advanced Talmud Class of Shiz Yeshiva
Chevruta Pairs:
Galinda and Shenshen
Phannee and Fiyero
Nessarose and Boq
Tippetarius and Jinjur
Elphaba and the Hat
Chevruta Pairs:
Galinda and Shenshen
Phannee and Fiyero
Nessarose and Boq
Tippetarius and Jinjur
Elphaba and the Hat
SCENE: Four chevruta pairs are sitting in the Beit Midrash of Yeshivat Shiz. Elphaba is sitting in a corner across from The Hat. She discreetly stands up as Mme. Morrible enters the room.
SHENSHEN: You’re not Professor Turmouse.
PHANNEE: Where’s Professor Turmouse?
MME. MORRIBLE: Stand up, if you please, when the Rabbi or the Maharat enters the room.
JINJUR: But you’re not a Rabbi or a Maharat… or even a Yo’etzet Halacha--
GALINDA: (standing up) She’s the senior sorceress of Shiz Yeshiva, which means you stand up twice as briskly!
ELPHABA: (mumbles to herself) God forbid, you give someone respect.
NESSAROSE: If you please, Madame Morrible, where is Professor Turmouse?
MME. MORRIBLE: Professor Turmouse was not an appropriate instructor for this level. I will be filling in until the Beit Din appoints a new instructor for the senior Talmud class of Shiz Yeshiva.
GALINDA: And may I say, Madame Morrible, what an honor it is to have you with us.
MME. MORRIBLE: (dismissively) Only if you say so with your Gemara open. [She riffles through the papers on the teacher’s desk. Elphaba and Galinda sit back down.] I notice that Professor Turmouse has not left any record of the inyanim you have covered so far --
GALINDA: We’re in Tractate Megillah Perek Bet, 13a:15!
MME. MORRIBLE: Miss Galinda, I am perfectly capable of running morning seder without applying to you for help. I was merely commenting on Professor Turmouse’s lack of organization. We will begin with Megillah 13a:10. For those of you who still have not opened your books, I understand the Yeshiva of Rabba Bar Bar Channah’s Second-Rate Rejects is still accepting applications. Who can tell me what Esther’s real name was, and why? Tippetarius?
TIPPETARIUS: (quietly) It’s Ozma.
SHENSHEN: (laughing) Shut up! Queen Esther’s real name was not “Ozma”!
TIPPATARIUS: (trying to sink into the floor) No, not her name, mine. I go by Ozma now.
MME. MORRIBLE: (grandly) I do beg your pardon, Princess Ozma. I must be more careful with the roster. I will make sure the school records respect your updated name and pronouns.
PHANNEE: (obnoxious whisper) Why do we--
MME. MORRIBLE: (cuts him off savagely) Mr. Phannee, if you are about to ask why do we think Ozma’s name change has to do with the Megillah, I am sure one of your fellow students can answer you! Miss Elphaba?
ELPHABA: (quietly) Esther lived in the harem under nicknames and assumed names. No one cared what her real name was or who she really was inside. She had to lie about who she was in order to survive. She couldn’t even get respect under her own name.
PHANNEE: (exasperated whisper, very embarrassed) I was GOING to say, why do we need to go back to verse 10 for?
MME. MORRIBLE: Because you clearly have not internalized its lessons. Ozma, please read.
OZMA:
The verse states: “And he had brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther” (Esther 2:7). She is referred to as “Hadassah” and she is referred to as “Esther.” What was her real name? It is taught in a baraita ...
MME. MORRIBLE: Fiyero, take your feet off the table and tell me what a baraita is.
FIYERO: It’s a mishna that didn’t make the grade and got cut. Like me.
OZMA:
...רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר: אֶסְתֵּר שְׁמָהּ, וְלָמָּה נִקְרָא שְׁמָהּ הֲדַסָּה — עַל שֵׁם הַצַּדִּיקִים שֶׁנִּקְרְאוּ הֲדַסִּים. וְכֵן הוּא אוֹמֵר: ״וְהוּא עוֹמֵד בֵּין הַהֲדַסִּים״.
... Rabbi Meir says: Esther was her real name. Why then was she called Hadassah? On account of the righteous, who are called myrtles [hadassim], and so it states: “And he stood among the myrtles [hahadassim]” (Zechariah 1:8).
MME. MORRIBLE: And what do you think of Rabbi Meir’s explanaification?
FIYERO: I’m sorry, what?
JINJUR: (saucily) Myrtle Turtle wordle hurdle.
SHENSHEN: Exqueeze me?
JINJUR: (sarcastic) I’m being “poetical.” Like Darmok and Jilad at Tinagra.
MME. MORRIBLE: Well stated, Miss Jinjur. Zechariah’s poetry may lack something of relevance and understandification. Miss Nessarose, you appear to have something to say.
NESSAROSE: Rabbi Meir sounds to me like someone who already knows what the answer is and is trying very hard to justify it.
ELPHABA: How so?
NESSAROSE: It’s like the people who use Parashat Vayetze to “prove” that Ya’akov Avinu wore a kipah. It says: וַיֵּצֵא יַעֲקֹב מִבְּאֵר שָׁבַע. “Ya’akov went out from Be’er Sheva.” He clearly went out, so how could he go out without a kipah?
GALINDA: So, Rabbi Meir’s explanation would work better if her name had been Tzadekes [righteous woman] or Chasida.
FIYERO: (winks) Except that a chasida is a water bird that delivers babies in bundles like little postal packages.
MME. MORRIBLE: Mr. Fiyero, what does Rabbi Yehuda say Esther’s real name was?
BOQ: (being cute) Heidi!
MME. MORRIBLE: Correct.
SHENSHEN: …WHAT?!?
BOQ: (showing off) Because Esther was HIDING her true identity! Get it? Hide-E?
FIYERO:
רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר: הֲדַסָּה שְׁמָהּ, וְלָמָּה נִקְרֵאת שְׁמָהּ אֶסְתֵּר? עַל שֵׁם שֶׁהָיְתָה מַסְתֶּרֶת דְּבָרֶיהָ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״אֵין אֶסְתֵּר מַגֶּדֶת אֶת עַמָּהּ וְגוֹ׳״.
Rabbi Yehuda differs and says: Hadassah was her real name. Why then was she called Esther? Because she concealed [masteret] the truth about herself, as it is stated: “Esther had not yet made known her kindred nor her people” (Esther 2:20).
SHENSHEN: Then why wasn’t Rachav also renamified “Esther”--
PHANNEE: Or “Heidi”--
SHENSHEN: --for HIDING Yehoshua’s spies in Jericho?
MME. : We are clearly on a quest for a clearer drash --
Fiyero: (bored) Are we?
NESSAROSE:
רַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה אוֹמֵר: הֲדַסָּה שְׁמָהּ, וְלָמָּה נִקְרֵאת אֶסְתֵּר? שֶׁהָיוּ אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם קוֹרִין אוֹתָהּ עַל שׁוּם אִסְתַּהַר...
Rabbi Neḥemya concurs and says: Hadassah was her real name. Why then was she called Esther? This was her non-Hebrew name, for owing to her beauty the nations of the world called her after Istahar...
SHENSHEN: I read Ozdust Stardom from cover to cover every week, and I have never even heard of that star.
GALINDA: (eagerly) The ancients had many names for the morning star, including Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess, and Veneera, the Roman goddess of love and beauty.
SHENSHEN/PHANNEE: She’s so good! / She’s so smart. / OMG, so true. / You’re so smart, Galinda.
BOQ: …Who? Ishtar?!? Venera?
ELPHABA: Venus.
JINJUR: (outraged) ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT QUEEN ESTHER WAS NAMED AFTER A BABYLONIAN SEX GODDESS!??
MME. MORRIBLE: Have you ever heard of the Babylonian god Marduk, king of their gods? What would the name Marduki, “one of Marduk’s men,” sound like in Hebrew?
JINJUR: OMG, no! This is outrageous! We need to start a revolution! Our special Jewish celebration of queenly empowerment and triangle cookies is completely contaminated with idols. It’s like we never won the battle of Chanukah at all! We need to take to the streets and purge our Purim story of Avodah Zarah and other religions!
FIYERO: (snorts in contempt)
MME. MORRIBLE: (sweetly) Mr. Fiyero, would you care to share with the class?
FIYERO: Jinjur, pet, can I ask you something? What are your favorite things we do on Purim?
JINJUR: (counts off on her fingers) Costumes! Masquerade balls!
FIYERO: --Catholic Carneval.
JINJUR: --costume parades…
FIYERO: Carneval.
JINJUR: …all-you-can-eat buffet feasts…
GALINDA: (catching on) Mardi Gras, a.k.a. “I’m getting so fat this Tuesday…”
FIYERO: (grinning widely) …the last day of CARNEVAL.
JINJUR: (dawning horror) …Purim …carnivals…
FIYERO: Why worry? Esther had to assimilate to survive, so we might as well get some fancy masks and some prizes out of it.
ELPHABA: Hadassah deliberaciously told people she was named after Istahar, so no one would suspect she was Jewish. Esther was a non-Jewish name until Achashverosh’s queen became so famous that we reclaimed the name for ourselves.
MME. MORRIBLE: What do you think of that drash?
NESSAROSE: I think it makes perfect sense. If she had introduced herself as Hadassah or Miriam or Abigail, everyone would have known she was Jewish.
MME. MORRIBLE: Let us go on. Boq?
BOQ:
... בֶּן עַזַּאי אוֹמֵר: אֶסְתֵּר, לֹא אֲרוּכָּה וְלֹא קְצָרָה הָיְתָה, אֶלָּא בֵּינוֹנִית כַּהֲדַסָּה...
...Ben Azzai says: Esther was neither tall nor short, but of average size like a myrtle tree, and therefore she was called Hadassah, the Hebrew name resembling that myrtle tree....
GALINDA: That is just rude. If I were to be introducified to James Finkle, I would not say, “Oh, you may think your name is James, but I shall call you Redwood because you are almost seven feet tall.” And there are hundreds of Munchkins with hereditary dwarfism who are not ALL named Dwarf Marigold. We don’t pigeonhole our children by naming them after their personal appearance.
SHENSHEN/PHANNEE/BOQ: She’s so good! / You’re so good, Galinda. / You are such a role model.
ELPHABA: (makes a strangled noise)
NESSAROSE: (looks away from everyone in embarrassment)
GALINDA: If I ever rise to a position of authority, I will ensure that all Ozians are judged solely on their personal charm and not on their personal appearance. I am deeply committed to social justice and the just grantification of rightful authority. (beams at Ozma) My first act of righteousnigovernance will be to outlaw gender-deaffirming spellcasting for everyone whose identity has been dismantletifixated by anti-feminist holdouts.
SHENSHEN/PHANNEE/BOQ: You’re so good!
OZMA: …Wow.
FIYERO: (smirks) Your first act?
GALINDA: (cute but truthful) Okay, my first act will be to go on a wild shopping spree all across the Emerald City, but my second act will be just grantification of rightful authority and gender-affirming spellcasting.
JINJUR: YES! Shopping sprees for all the girlinists in Oz!
[Mme. Morrible rolls her eyes. Galinda notices.]
GALINDA: (virtuously) I will also fund a sevenfold increase in synagogue and palace staff to enable all Ozians to receive the best and most affirming service care, as it says in 13a:15, which we WERE reading yesterday:
״וְאֵת שֶׁבַע הַנְּעָרוֹת וְגוֹ׳״. אָמַר רָבָא: שֶׁהָיְתָה מוֹנָה בָּהֶן יְמֵי שַׁבָּת.
The verse states: “And the seven maids chosen to be given her out of the king’s house” (Esther 2:9). Rava said: She would have a separate maid attend her each day, and she would count the days of the week by them, so she was always aware when Shabbat was.
FIYERO: Didn’t they let those poor bored harem victims use the calendar? A calendar which, I may point out, is a secular Babylonian calendar with no ties whatsoever to the Jewish faith?
BOQ: (impressed, despite himself) …Really?
FIYERO: Sure. Elul, Tishree [sic], Marcheshvan: they’re all Babylonian months. Hebrew months are named things like Chodesh Aviv and Chodesh Eitanim. Get this-- Marcheshvan sounds ridiculous even in Aramaic and even dumber in Hebrew. So they’re like, “Oh maybe the whole month is going to be a bitter pile of homework and 5-day school weeks,” and then we say plain “Cheshvan” to be superstitious.
GALINDA: (A) Apparently, Esther might not have wanted to be seen ticking off cycles of seven days on a calendar, and (B), the Ben Ish Chai says that Queen Esther scheduled a shift change at twilight every night. That way, even if Esther were socializing with powerful Persian noblewomen on a Friday afternoon, drinkifying and and networkifying indoors in a place where she could not easily see the sky, she would know it was time to make an excuse and go light some candles, because the sunset maid had come in with a tray of drinks.
NESSAROSE: Couldn’t she have done that with only two maids?
ELPHABA: Midrash Esther Rabbah says that many of the servants were scary anti-Semitic, so Esther used different maidservants on Shabbat than on other days. This way, each weekday maidservant would be used to seeing Esther playing music and weaving and writing letters, while the Saturday maidservant would be used to seeing Esther chilling by the pool with a book and talking to her friends. That way, not one of them would make the connection that Esther never worked on Saturdays. The six women from earlier in the week would assume that Esther was always productive, and the maid who came on Shabbat would assume that Esther was a princess who didn’t like to dirty her hands with anything more complicated than a nail file.
SHENSHEN: (contemptuous) I find it very hard to believe that seven women working the same job never TALKED or gossiped about their girl boss. No one JUST sits around chillaxing by the pool all day every day. Everyone has passions and interests and things they work at.
FIYERO: (cheerfully) I disagree. I never work at ANYTHING.
MME. MORRIBLE: As much as I would love to agree with you, I have seen you work very hard at dodging your responsibilities.
PHANNEE: Dodging your responsibilities and looking fine.
GALINDA: Dodging your responsibilities and looking fine and extracurricular recreationalism.
FIYERO: Dodging my responsibilities and looking fine and extracurricular recreationalism.…and lunch. It’s my favorite subject. I excel at Lunch like no one else.
MME. MORRIBLE: (pounces) So, did Queen Esther keep kosher in the harem?
GALINDA: Yes!
FIYERO: (simultaneously) NO!
MME. MORRIBLE: (well pleased) Explain.
FIYERO: It explicitly says that Daniel and his friends refused to eat meat at the Babylonian court (Daniel 1:8-17), so their slavemaster and tutor brought them vegetarian options. It does NOT say that Esther refused to eat the meat, only that Hegai hurried to bring her “special portions.”
JINJUR: Which were kosher, OBVIOUSLY!
SHENSHEN: (snide) Who died and made her Rav?
FIYERO: (obligingly turns up the charm):
...״וַיְשַׁנֶּהָ וְאֶת נַעֲרוֹתֶיהָ וְגוֹ׳״. אָמַר רַב: שֶׁהֶאֱכִילָהּ מַאֲכָל יְהוּדִי.
...The verse continues: “And he changed her and her maids up to the best place in the house of the women.” Rav said: The change-up in the verse signals that he fed Jewish food.
NESSAROSE: (considers) Kosher food, or kosher-STYLE food?
BOQ: (rolls his eyes) NOT Kaufman’s Deli, lehavdil.
OZMA: (muses) Where did he get a mashgiach in Achashverosh’s palace?
MME. MORRIBLE/AUTHOR: (smiles) Does anyone remember when the Dean tried to throw Grandma Judith a retirement party and had it catered by Kaufman’s Deli so it would be “kosher”?
BOQ: (puzzled) Doesn't Kaufman’s Deli sell bacon blinztes??
GALINDA: (kindly) She couldn’t eat anything but Kaiser rolls and cucumbers, but the hosts had gone to so much trouble, she didn’t want to complain and hurt anyone’s feelings.
FIYERO:
וּשְׁמוּאֵל אָמַר: שֶׁהֶאֱכִילָהּ קְדָלֵי דַחֲזִירֵי.
And Shmuel said: The advancement was a well-intentioned act in that he fed her pig hinds, [thinking she was a foodie who would view it as a delicacy.]
PHANNEE: (laughing) Ooh, SNAP! She’s not eating the regular meat, so let’s tempt her with the finest pork from the king’s table!
GALINDA: Actually, some of the women taken from India were undoubtedly devout Hindus, and they would have refused to eat beef. So it’s a logical mistake for Hegai of Persia to make. A pious Hindu woman would eat pork.
MME. MORRIBLE: (slyly) Miss Elphaba, how do you think Shmuel came to the conclusion that treating Esther to “the best of the women’s house” meant pork?
ELPHABA: (shy) I’m not sure that he did.
MME. MORRIBLE: (encouraging) Go on.
ELPHABA: Shmuel may have heard this tradition from his master who heard his own master say not חֲזִירֵי but חֲזִירֵית a.k.a. חֲזֶרֶת. a.k.a. Lettuce. It’s only a one letter difference from the forbidden piggie-wiggies to the lettuce we eat for Passover.
SHENSHEN: Oh, puh-leez, like there could ever be a typo in the Talmud. And from a great Amora like Shmuel?
JINJUR: Oh puh-leez yourself, the first mishnah in Avodah Zarah is LITERALLY a bunch of Tannaim trying to figure out whether they meant et or eid because they can’t tell an aleph from an ayin.
ELPHABA: (conciliatory) I don’t think Shmuel heard wrong. I think Shmuel’s teacher heard wrong. And Rabbi Yochanan clearly says--
PHANNEE: (fangirling) OMG, Rabbi Yochanan.
SHENSHEN: (also fangirling) He’s so cute!
GALINDA: (Proudly)
וְרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן אָמַר: זֵרְעוֹנִים, וְכֵן הוּא אוֹמֵר: ״וַיְהִי הַמֶּלְצַר נוֹשֵׂא אֶת פַּת בָּגָם וְנוֹתֵן לָהֶם זֵרְעוֹנִים״.
And Rabbi Yoḥanan said: He gave her Vegan seed-based recipes. And so it states with regard to the kindness done for Daniel and his associates: “So the steward took away their food and the wine that they should drink; and gave them Vegan seed-based recipes” (Daniel 1:16).
NESSAROSE: Maybe Esther stayed away from supertreif, like pork and shellfish, but she might not always have known what was in that pastry before biting into it.
BOQ: She could have gone Vegan without raising suspicion.
GALINDA: Going Vegan was probably very good for her skin.
MME. MORRIBLE: (rolling her eyes) Finishing Verse 12 will probably be very good for your skin.
PHANNEE: …Really?
MME. MORRIBLE: (snide) Well, certainly for some of you. Miss Elphaba, if you please.
ELPHABA: (nervously) Me?
MME. MORRIBLE: (kindly) Read.
ELPHABA:
רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן קׇרְחָה אָמַר: אֶסְתֵּר — יְרַקְרוֹקֶת הָיְתָה, וְחוּט שֶׁל חֶסֶד מָשׁוּךְ עָלֶיהָ.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa said: Esther was...
Mme. Morrible: Yeeeeeesssssss? 😊
ELPHABA:
Esther was…
green…
…but a thread of grace wound around her.
[Fadeout]
Esther was…
green…
…but a thread of grace wound around her.
[Fadeout]
ELPHABA -- [SINGS]
Did I really just read that?
On the daf did I see?
Queen Esther who saved her people
Is green just like me? Spoken -- “Just think…!”
My appearance I've tried
To suppress or hide
Is a talent that could
Help me be like Esther,
Since she was good
So I'll make good:
Did I really just read that?
On the daf did I see?
Queen Esther who saved her people
Is green just like me? Spoken -- “Just think…!”
My appearance I've tried
To suppress or hide
Is a talent that could
Help me be like Esther,
Since she was good
So I'll make good:
If I could be Queen Esther
Once I prove my worth…
If I were like Queen Esther,
What I've wanted so since birth!
Yes, with all her courtly wisdom,
By my looks not to be blinded
Would you think Queen Esther was dumb?
Like Achashverosh, so small-minded? No!
She'd say to me, "I see who you truly are,
With a hostile world to defy,”
And that's how we'd line up,
Queen Esther and I.
Once I prove my worth…
If I were like Queen Esther,
What I've wanted so since birth!
Yes, with all her courtly wisdom,
By my looks not to be blinded
Would you think Queen Esther was dumb?
Like Achashverosh, so small-minded? No!
She'd say to me, "I see who you truly are,
With a hostile world to defy,”
And that's how we'd line up,
Queen Esther and I.
If I could make a difference,
My whole life would change.
'Cause once you're Torah famous,
No one thinks you're strange.
Your looks are not the whole of you,
Your middot take center stage,
And all Tanach has to love you
When, like Queen Esther, you're acclaimed.
And this diff’rence that makes life so hard to just try,
Maybe, at last, I'll know why,
As we walk hand in hand
Queen Esther and I.
My whole life would change.
'Cause once you're Torah famous,
No one thinks you're strange.
Your looks are not the whole of you,
Your middot take center stage,
And all Tanach has to love you
When, like Queen Esther, you're acclaimed.
And this diff’rence that makes life so hard to just try,
Maybe, at last, I'll know why,
As we walk hand in hand
Queen Esther and I.
***
Director's Notes: Filling the Shiz Yeshiva Talmud Class
Phannee and Shenshen are Galinda's flunkies at Shiz, and Phannee is walking on air to have been pulled out of their triple to be set up with Fiyero, the hot new kid. (Prof. Turmouse was wise enough to know that Galinda would stop making any progress if he were to let her work with the new guy. Smart wolf.)
Phannee and Shenshen are Galinda's flunkies at Shiz, and Phannee is walking on air to have been pulled out of their triple to be set up with Fiyero, the hot new kid. (Prof. Turmouse was wise enough to know that Galinda would stop making any progress if he were to let her work with the new guy. Smart wolf.)
Tippetarius (Tip for short) and Jinjur are characters from L. Frank Baum's sequel, The Marvelous Land of Oz, the only one of the original Oz books not to feature at least a cameo by Dorothy Gale. Tip, like Esther, is disconnected from his heritage and discovers that his identity is wound up in several names; later books in the series reveal that he is very sensitive about the name change.
Jinjur, as all Oz geeks know, is the rebel whose all-girl army ousted the scarecrow from his throne after the Wonderful Wizard (Oscar Diggs that was) left him in charge of the Emerald City. General Jinjur and her army of teenage girls were comic versions of badly-behaved suffragettes in Baum's own time: Mrs. Baum was a staunch feminist who lobbied long and hard to earn votes from women, and her husband did a wonderful job satirizing the kind of nonsense she had to deal with. Hot-tempered Jinjur does indeed conquer the Emerald City mainly to go on a shopping spree with her girlfriends. Her army is subsequently trounced by the far more professional and battle-ready army of Glinda the Good, who does not disagree that "the Emerald City has been ruled by men long enough," but replaces the grumpy teenage man-hater with the princess whose father was driven away by the "Wonderful" Wizard (now revealed as a trafficker). Jinjur's girls are required to return the loot before going home, and Glinda mentors the princess on how to rule EVERYONE fairly.
Galinda's comments about gender de-affirming spells refer to her subsequent discoveries as she smokes out the Wizard's remaining cronies to find out what they did to the princess.
About the Lupines
Look up תֻּרְמוֹס in Sefaria to see why Mme. Morrible and her cabal did not let Professor Turmouse keep his job for long. This is a deliberate hat tip to the scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Prof. Snape substitutes for Harry's class. Prof. Snape comes in with an agenda, as the denoument shows, and therefore makes excuses to riff on the existing syllabus and teach the content out of order. Similarly, this script teachers the verse slightly out of order in order for the scene to build to Elphaba's big moment of inspiration.
Look up תֻּרְמוֹס in Sefaria to see why Mme. Morrible and her cabal did not let Professor Turmouse keep his job for long. This is a deliberate hat tip to the scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Prof. Snape substitutes for Harry's class. Prof. Snape comes in with an agenda, as the denoument shows, and therefore makes excuses to riff on the existing syllabus and teach the content out of order. Similarly, this script teachers the verse slightly out of order in order for the scene to build to Elphaba's big moment of inspiration.