Wicked Fun Memories: When Margaret Hamilton Came to the Orchestra
Cynthia Erivo was not the first Wicked Witch of the West to join The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland native Margaret Hamilton beat her to it by nearly 50 years!
Oscar-nominated and Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning actress, singer, and producer Cynthia Erivo joined the 2025 Blossom Music Festival lineup to great acclaim. Erivo stars in the 2024–25 film adaptations of Wicked, which set box office records within the first three days of opening in US theaters on November 22, 2024.
But Erivo is not the first Wicked Witch of the West to grace Cleveland stages. Margaret Hamilton, who famously played the Witch in the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, was born in Cleveland in 1902. Some of her first professional acting engagements were right here, at the Cleveland Play House. Throughout her career, Hamilton acted in dozens of movies, TV shows, and radio shows. Before her acting career took off, though, Hamilton had been a kindergarten teacher in Cleveland, and her heart remained with children throughout her long life. In the 1970s she appeared on Sesame Street as the Wicked Witch and was dismayed when the episode scared children almost as much as her original film portrayal. After the Sesame Street debacle, Hamilton appeared on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood several times to explain that the Witch was just a costume and a character, not her personality.
In 1977, shortly after these engagements, Margaret Hamilton was a special guest at The Cleveland Orchestra’s “Hallowe’en Happenings” Children’s Key Concerts, on October 29 and 30. Hamilton met young performers in the lobby before the concert and appeared on stage both as herself and as a rather mischievous Wicked Witch of the West, stealing prop bikes and audience members’ hearts.
Throughout the concert, Margaret Hamilton and Robert Page bantered on and off stage, delighting young audiences.
— Ellen Sauer Tanyeri was the 2024–25 season archives research fellow. The fellowship is an opportunity for graduate music students from Case Western Reserve University to work with The Cleveland Orchestra Archives.