We found out last week that stage and screen stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande would open this year's Academy Awards broadcast with a performance from Wicked. What we didn't know is that they would pay tribute to almost the entire musical theatre lineage of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, with Grande singing "Over the Rainbow" from the original story's 1939 MGM movie musical adaptation, Erivo singing "Home" from the story's 1975 disco-soul stage musical The Wiz, and both duetting on "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.
Watch the full performance above. See Queen Latifah sing from The Wiz herself in the ceremony's In Memoriam segment, part of a tribute to Quincy Jones, below.
And those performances weren't the night's only Broadway moments. Tony-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell won Best Costume Design for his work on the film version of Broadway's Wicked, and the film's Nathan Crowley took the Production Design category. Kieran Culkin, already a Broadway alum and soon to be back on the boards in a new revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, kicked off the evening's awards winning the Supporting Actor category for his work in A Real Pain.
Wicked was up for the night's top honor鈥擝est Picture鈥攁nd both Erivo and Grande were nominated for their leading and supporting (respectively) performances as Elphaba and Glinda. The movie musical was also up for awards in the Film Editing, Original Score, Makeup and Hair Styling, Sound, and Visual Effects categories.
Also nominated from the world of theatre were Colman Domingo for his work in Sing Sing, Tony winner Ralph Fiennes for Conclave, Timoth茅e Chalamet for A Complete Unknown, Sebastian Stan for The Apprentice, and Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice.
To view the complete list of nominees, visit .
