An Oz-struck acclaim

They don’t know her face, but there’s something about those green fingernails....

“It’s the green nail polish that triggers them,” says Stephanie J. Block. “I’ve been asked at the market and Costco and places like that. They say: ‘Are you in “Wicked,” by chance?’ ”

Block is, by chance, in “Wicked” -- billed as the “untold story of the Witches of Oz” -- portraying Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Her counterpart, Glinda the Good Witch, is Kendra Kassebaum, who plays her role with skin and nails a more natural shade and can therefore go discount shopping undetected.

Though both performers have multiple Broadway and recording credits, they are well aware that most of the public doesn’t know their faces, or their names. In fact, once the costumes are off -- and without the green nails -- one might not be able to guess which witch is which.

Still, because of their iconic roles in this mega-hit show -- noted for its appeal to young audiences, particularly teenage girls -- at least while they are onstage at the Pantages Theatre or meeting fans at the stage door, these virtual unknowns are enjoying the kind of noisy adulation usually reserved for rock stars and Vegas divas.

The Los Angeles cast also includes Hollywood stars Carol Kane as Madame Morrible and David Garrison as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but those 200 fans outside the stage door after each show are waiting for Block and Kassebaum. “These kids are plugged into Elphaba and Glinda,” said Garrison, signing his share of autographs but fully aware of what the crowd was waiting for. “Everybody has a bit of the ‘green girl’ in them.”

Though young women dominate at the stage door, squealing question-reviews into their cellphones -- “Did you not love it? Was it amazing? What did I tell you? Did you cry?” -- there are also plenty of “green boys” too. “I like everything about it; it’s the best show,” offers 14-year-old Angelo Custino of Burbank, who along with his friend Garrett Runck, 15, was lucky enough to snag one of the 26 front-row seats offered through a lottery held two hours before each performance. Their moms, who didn’t get tickets, went shopping during the show. “It’s sort of mysterious and yet so familiar because everybody knows the story,” adds Custino. “And it’s funny and it’s sad and it just keeps going!”

Kermit the Frog once sang, “It’s not easy being green,” but Block, a native of Whittier, is finding it’s not bad at all. She’s thrilled by the odd blend of anonymity and superstardom that has turned her into the Wicked Witch of Costco. In fact, one of her favorite moments comes when no one sees her at all -- when the curtain is already down at the end of Act 1 after she sings her high-decibel showstopper, “Defying Gravity,” while suspended 13 feet above the stage.

“The curtain comes down and the audience is still screaming, and it’s time for the rest of the cast to get offstage to their dressing rooms,” Block says. “But I am still being descended from the levitator, as we call it. So I get to hear all the oohs and aahs and wonderful things, comparisons to Celine Dion or Barbra Streisand, or ‘This is better than Broadway.’ So I get to revel in that for a few minutes.”

Also in extreme makeup, Block portrayed Liza Minnelli opposite Hugh Jackman’s Peter Allen in the Broadway musical “The Boy From Oz” -- and she readily acknowledges that most of the screams were for Jackman. Now, it’s the Girl From Oz who’s enjoying the applause.

“Now I feel like I am the Hugh Jackman of the show,” she says modestly. “All of the adulation and applause and acclaim comes along with being that iconic character.”

Kassebaum, a native of St. Louis, says she experienced the same sort of screaming crowds of young theatergoers when she performed in “Rent” on Broadway -- but then she was a member of an ensemble cast rather than a breakout star. And though she describes herself as a shy person, she admits she has come to love donning her glittering tiara.

“This show kind of makes you feel like a rock star every night,” she says. “It just feels wonderful -- I didn’t realize how much it impacts young women’s lives, so that’s been a trip.”

She is a little less comfortable with the stage-door scene. Kassebaum says it usually takes the crowd a minute or two to recognize her in street clothes -- “I don’t know, maybe they think I have a travel-size tiara.” She tends to make her way down the line in a snappy 10 to 15 minutes, she says, to save her vocal cords after the exhausting three-hour performance.

The star-struck young women at the stage door, however, always seem to summon their loudest voices when they finally meet their Glinda. “The volume,” Kassebaum exclaims. “It’s like, I’m right here, I’m right in front of you -- I hear ya!”

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‘Wicked’

Where: Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd.,Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 2 and 8 p.m. Thursday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 p.m. Sunday

Ends: July 31

Price: $35 to $89

Contact: (213)365-5000, (714)740-7878 or www.ticketmaster.com