The musical Wicked tells the story of two young witches, Elphaba and Glinda, as they study magic together at Shiz University. It is an example where witches can be both good and bad – Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West – as opposed to many other selections in this exhibit that portray witches in a negative light. 

The Witch in Sondheim’s Into the Woods is the musical’s main antagonist and a complex character, seeking revenge on those that caused the loss of her youth and beauty. 

"This article investigates Hexentanz (Witch Dance)--Mary Wigman's signature work--in the context of the radically changing political and ideological background to its creation. The piece was choreographed in three distinct versions, each during a different political system... I argue that in constructing her dances Wigman partook in a widely disseminated and complex early twentieth-century German discourse on witchcraft and witch persecutions, which included interpretations ranging from anticlerical and feminist to racist and anti-Semitic."

--excerpt from Alexandra Kolb, “Wigman’s Witches: Reformism, Orientalism, Nazism,” Dance Research Journal 48, 2 (2016): 26-43. 

The plays included all feature witches in some way. Norna, or, the Witch's Curse is the real version of the play performed in Chapter 1 of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Mary Chase’s Mrs. McThing is a musical featuring the daughter of a witch, the casting of spells, and a witches gathering including goblins and ghoulies. Christopher Fry’s 1948 The Lady's Not for Burning includes a character, Jennet, who is accused of being a witch.  Carol Lynn Pearson’s Mother Wove the Morning features the stories of sixteen women from history, including a medieval witch, while Henry David Hwang’s The Sound of a Voice includes a female character rumored to be a witch.