When audiences watch the animated elements of the new film “Wicked” bloom on the big screen starting next week, they’ll have an Academy Award-winning New Holland native to thank.
David Shirk, a 1985 graduate of Garden Spot High School, is the animation supervisor for the film that’s an adaptation of the popular “Wicked” musical. That show has been running on Broadway for 21 years.
Shirk is an animation supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic, the San Francisco-based special-effects company founded by George Lucas and owned by the Walt Disney Co.
The musical film, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, is the first of a two-part adaptation of the stage musical — in turn loosely based on a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire. The musical tells the origin story of the good and wicked witches of “The Wizard of Oz” — Elphaba and Glinda — from their schoolgirl friendship to their …