Among the draws that the fantastical Broadway hit Wicked has going for it is the nostalgia for the beloved old movie The Wizard of Oz. The spectacle that recounts the back story for the good and bad witches, Glinda and Elphaba, is replete with flying monkeys, munchkins, and other colourful nods to the film.

It turns out that perhaps no one has a fonder memory of seeing the 1939 classic than Don Amendolia, who just happens to be playing the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the touring show that soon hits Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre. The veteran star of the stage, movies (from Boogie Nights to Fearless), and TV (from Twin Peaks to Sunset Beach) reveals he has the amazing ability to reach into his memory bank and recall images from as far back as his infancy. And one that stands out clearly is his first viewing of the Judy Garland classic when he was about two or three.

“One of the first and strongest memories I had as a toddler was being stood up in a chair and being dressed in a one-piece sunsuit with ducks on it. It was a special thing; I’d never seen it before,” he relays to the Straight on a call from Spokane, Washington, on the eve of Wicked’s opening there. “Then the woman across the street and her daughter came over, and the two mothers took us to the movie theatre in our little town. I remember where we sat, I remember the cartoon before the movie—everything. One thing that scared me was the green witch.”¦What I do remember was the Wizard, although I couldn’t have told you he was the wizard at the time. That was a day I’ll never forget.”

In other words, you could almost say Amendolia was born to play the role. And it is one that he openly relishes: for all his work on and off Broadway, he insists he’s never witnessed such a response to a show. “I love the company, I love the show, and mostly I love how people respond every night,” he says. “It just thrills people, and there’s no kind of payment like that.”

In the musical, the green-skinned Elphaba (future Wicked Witch of the West) is an outcast, while Glinda (future Good Witch of the North) is the popular blond, and they’re both sent to work with the Wizard. The story, based on the book of the same name by Gregory Maguire, isn’t just appealing to older generations who grew up watching Dorothy and Toto skipping down the Yellow Brick Road, Amendolia observes. “It never ceases to amaze me how, across the board, it speaks to everyone at some level,” the affable actor says. “For the teens and the kids that come out to see it, they all go through the fear of not being accepted and being teased. Acceptance is so important at their age and they get what’s wrong. They’re all loyal fans, too: they write and they come back to see it again. It’s a phenomenon to me.”

The Wizard in Wicked turns out to be not so wonderful: he’s running Oz like a totalitarian state, bent on segregating the talking animals from the rest of society. Amendolia says he’s constantly struck by how it reflects the headlines of today. “It’s so cogent to our times. The Wizard has a line when Elphaba finds out he’s responsible for silencing the animals, and he says: ”˜When I first got here there was discord and discontent. And where I come from, everyone knows: the best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy.’” Dick Cheney couldn’t have said it better himself.

While Amendolia admits there was some trepidation about playing such a powerfully iconic character—one that made a strong impression on him as a wee lad—he’s been able to find the humanity beneath the Wizard and has resolved that he’s not such a bad guy after all. “He’s just a person doing his best in a strange world that he built,” he explains before heading off to his green-glowing on-stage castle. “The fact is he isn’t a wizard or anything special, he’s just a snake-oil salesman and a carnie and doing the best he can to hold onto his world.”

Wicked is at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from Wednesday (June 1) to June 26.