Exclusive | Why Wicked: For Good team is nervous about sequel: Continuing to make improvements

Can “Wicked: For Good” be “Wicked: As Good”?That’s the pressure facing the filmmakers behind the sequel to “Wicked,” which set a box-office record as the highest-grossing movie adaptation of a Broadway musical after its release last November.“Everybody’s thrilled that the first movie was so incredibly well received and had such cultural impact,” composer Stephen Schwartz, 77, exclusively told The Post on the red carpet of the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony — where he received the Johnny Mercer Award — on Thursday night.“But it does raise the bar,” he admitted of the film that received 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.“So we’re all a little nervous.”Indeed, Schwartz is still “working really hard” on the sequel — once again starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Galinda/Glinda, respectively — just five months before its release on Nov.

21.“I’m still doing scoring,” he said.“We have our orchestral recording sessions next month, so gotta get ready for that.”Schwartz is also busy working on another Broadway musical that will reunite him with Kristin Chenoweth, who originated the role of “Galinda/Glinda” in the stage version of “Wicked” in 2003.“We have a new Broadway show opening in November, ‘The Queen of Versailles,’” he said.

“Again, we’re working very hard.We had a really good tryout last summer, but we learned a lot from it and are, you know, continuing to make improvements.

But we feel like we’re ready to go a few months from now.”For those expecting more of “Wicked” in his new musical, Schwartz explained that we’re not in Oz anymore.“It’s contemporary America and a little bit of 17th century France, so not Oz at all,” he said.“Kristin obviously will still be using that enormous gift of hers vocally and her comic gifts.

So in that there will be a continuity, but it’s a very, very different character, and you see another side of K...