I am a huge Kristin Chenoweth fan. The diminutive and fabulous actress with the powerful voice is best known for originating the role of popular witch Glinda in the Broadway musical “Wicked.” It’s a role she got Tony nomination for, but lost it to her co-star, Jewish queen Idina Menzel, who played protagonist Elphaba. (Chenoweth had previously won a Tony for playing Sally Brown in the excellent 1998/1999 revival of the Peanuts musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”)
She’s truly had too many iconic TV, movie and Broadway roles to share, including her Emmy award-winning pie shop waitress Olive Snook in the Bryan Fuller show “Pushing Daisies.” And I’ve avidly tried to watch every single one of her performances.
So imagine how surprised and disappointed with myself I was to realize that Kristin Chenoweth had put out an incredible recording of a Hanukkah song two years ago that I didn’t know about until this very day! And it’s not just any Hanukkah song — but one written by Jewish lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz, the same man behind the music and words of “Wicked,” “Pippin” and “Godspell,” and the iconic tunes from animated movies like “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “The Prince of Egypt.”
The Hanukkah song is on her 2021 holiday album named “HAPPINESS Is…Christmas!” and it is aptly titled “We Are Lights.” It totally sounds like something that could come from a full length Hanukkah musical, and personally that is exactly what I want from Schwartz. The song is a reminder of the miracle of the oil and the “lamp that kept on burning,” reflected in the “row of burning candles,” but also the fact that we are miracles ourselves, “lights of memories” and “glowing, growing miracles.” It’s dramatic, it’s flamboyant, it has every single element of a perfectly theatrical Broadway song.
Chenoweth herself is not Jewish and has often spoke about her Christian faith. Yet the Hanukkah theme of light was one that informed the entirety of the album.
She said that when she first conceived the album, what kept coming to her was “light: light at the end of the tunnel, God’s light, all these things.”
“Every time I would [feel] down, something good would happen, and there would be light,” the actress, who suffered a terrible accident on the set of “The Good Wife” in 2012, revealed on a podcast.
“I called Stephen Schwartz, who wrote ‘Wicked,’ and I said, ‘Do you have a song about light?” she told Australia’s Morning Show in 2021.
“He said, ‘It’s a Hanukkah song.’ I said, ‘Perfect,’” she recounted. For Chenoweth, the song is about remembering “that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and light represents hope, which is what we must have right now.”
Two years later, that message of hope feels more important than ever. Thank you Kristin and Stephen for that light.
Lyrics to “We Are Lights:”
A lamp that kept on burning
A miracle they say
But the world has kept on turning
Are there miracles today?
Everyone who lights the candles
Has a bit of ancient spark
We are miracles, lighting up the dark
We are lights, lights of memory
Remembering times long gone
We are glowing, growing miracles
We are lights, we are lights
We are lights, shining on and on
A row of burning candles
Shines light upon your face
Linking you, and me, and all of us
To a far off holy place
But the blazing of the candles
Is not the only light
Look at all of us
Shining here, tonight
We are lights, lights of memory
Remembering times long gone
We are glowing, growing miracles
We are lights, we are lights
We are lights, shining on and on
But the blazing of the candles
Is not the only light
Look at all of us
Shining here, tonight
We are lights, lights of memory
Remembering times long gone
We are glowing, growing miracles
We are lights, we are lights
We are lights, shining on
We are lights, shining on
We are lights, shining on and on
