Oz in the News 4.18.24

THE WIZ: REVIVAL DOESN’T EASE DOWN THE ROAD EASILY

In the program, Amber Ruffin, who neatly revised last season’s Some Like It Hot with Matthew Lopez, is announced as having added material. How much? According to supplied info, she’s boldly, not to say brazenly, reworked 50 percent of it. In one interview, she has vouched of her contributions, “We made a choice to not modernize it, but to make it so it could always go up at any time—I honestly feel like this version could go up 30 years from now and you don’t have to change a word, and it is fine.”

Not so fast. What’s on view right now isn’t even “fine” for 2024. That includes just about the entire second act, which gets going at Emerald City with a green-tinged production number.  In Ruffin’s revise the Wizard is seen even before the Wicked Witch does any menacing — a Wicked Witch called Evillene and played by Melody A. Betts, who’s also an adoring Aunt Em.

When this supposedly contemporized Wizard begins wizzing, he’s no longer exposed as a benevolent aging fellow but is depicted as a tough galoot supposedly protecting his Emerald City citizens from some curse or other that needs lifting. Evillene, when she finally makes an appearance, is menacing but hardly as throttling as spectators expect. More specifics will not be itemized because they’d only confirm that this new shuffle – intended to address racism in a politicized gaze at the classic? — packs nowhere near the delightfully timeless horror that audiences have long known and still love.

THE WIZ: NOT AN OZ-PICIOUS REVIVAL

Addaperle (Allyson Kaye Daniel) makes jokes at her late sister’s expense: “She flat. Flat as she can be. I mean, this woman is so flat that instead of a coffin, we are gonna use a manila envelope.” Enter Glinda (Deborah Cox): “Wow, you look like an angel.” “Thanks, I moisturize.” Amber Ruffin is credited with “additional material for this production,” but after her sharp work on Some Like It Hot’s book I am loath to ascribe any of these groaners to her. Wanting to go home, Dorothy is pointed in the Wiz’s direction but must assume the corpse’s silver slippers to “Ease On Down the Road.” Yet it’s not a road at all, just a cadre of drum majors in yellow capes and big black hats. Couldn’t anyone come up with something yellow on the floor for the characters to walk on?

Dorothy encounters the usual suspects, but what do you know, the Wicked Witch was responsible for everyone’s woes: stealing the heart of the Scarecrow (Avery Wilson), rusting the Tinman (Phillip Johnson Richardson); and scaring the guts out of the Lion (Kyle Ramar Freeman). Turns out the Wiz (Wayne Brady, bland and underused) and the Emerald City generally have similarly been cursed, for no one may leave its gates. So Dorothy’s tracking down Evillene (Betts again) is actually pointedly motivated, and rendered pretty easy, too, what with the Witch telegraphing her Achilles heel (“What is a bucket of water doing up here? Guards, take it away!”).

Oz in the News 3.29.24

Stolen ruby slippers were buried in suspect’s backyard for seven years

A woman with ties to an organized retail theft ring has told federal investigators that Jerry Hal Saliterman, the second man accused of stealing ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz,” had the famous shoes buried in his backyard for at least seven years. The unnamed woman, who is described as a “cooperating defendant,” saw the slippers in a grocery bag, according to court documents. Instead of anonymously returning them — like she said she asked — they were put in a clear plastic container with a white lid and buried near a shed on the south side of Saliterman’s lawn in Crystal. They were treated in an ultraviolet sanitizer cabinet, the woman told authorities, to remove traces of DNA.

Land of Oz Theme Park to Host 2024 Autumn at Oz Festival, Marking 85th Anniversary of “The Wizard of Oz”

The Land of Oz theme park, located on Beech Mountain, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, has announced its plans to host the 2024 Autumn at Oz Festival. The event will celebrate the 85th anniversary of the classic MGM film, “The Wizard of Oz,” and is scheduled to take place over three weekends in September: 6th-8th, 13th-15th, and 20th-22nd. The festival, known as the largest “Wizard of Oz” festival, promises to offer visitors an immersive experience in the world of Oz.

Oz in the News 2.24.24

André De Shields Looks Back on 50 Years of The Wiz, Haarlem Nocturne, and Looking Fabulous

Anyone who’s ever seen André De Shields on stage or off knows the Tony winner is a singular performer. The Hadestown star is at 54 Below through February 24 re-creating his 1984 Broadway revue Haarlem Nocturne, but his first major role was the title character of the landmark 1975 musical The Wiz, a modern re-telling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that showcased the music, dancing, and general fabulousness of Black artists. Almost 50 years later, The Wiz is coming back too, with the first major new staging of the musical set to begin performances at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre March 29.

De Shields says that in 1975, producer Ken Harper had been thinking of The Wiz’s wizard more in line with the 1939 MGM screen version of L. Frank Baum’s tale, in which Frank Morgan plays a wizard who’s somewhat of a grandfatherly old coot. De Shields, who had already been eliminated from auditions for the Scarecrow, Tinman, and Lion, suspected that what Harper wanted was not going to work.

“I knew that Harper was wrong,” remembers De Shields. “He wasn’t being evil, but he wasn’t understanding what [The Wiz songwriter] Charlie Smalls had written. Frank Morgan can’t sing soul music.” At that point in the musical’s development, the character’s two signature songs—“So You Wanted to Meet the Wizard” and “Y’all Got It”—were already written, both up-tempo, energetic, cool songs in what was to be billed as “The Super Soul Musical.”

Oz in the News 2.14.24

‘The Wiz’ revival now in LA is a ‘risk.’ It could also change how Broadway does business

Starting this week, “The Wiz” wraps its 13-city tour with three weeks of performances at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. The visually magnificent, dance-driven, Black musical translation of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz” will then play a limited run on Broadway and, later, kick off a second national tour.

Rarely does a musical “ease on down the road” to Broadway in way this “Wiz” plans to. Productions usually premiere there after no more than a few developmental runs off-Broadway or at regional theaters outside New York, and subsequently launch a tour only after opening, or even completing, a Broadway run. By comparison, it’s as if this revival of the Tony-winning funk and soul show is going to Broadway after more than a dozen out-of-town tryouts.

“It was important that we were going to Black communities around this country — Baltimore, Cleveland, Atlanta — and feeling the impact of those changes in an organic way,” says Williams. “For so many of us, this is more than just a commercial endeavor because we have such a deep personal connection to the show, and there’s so much about it that is so deeply rooted in Black culture. It’s been incredible to crystallize certain moments and see things that really matter to us being acknowledged by the audiences that we were building it for.”

But “The Wiz’s” road to Broadway has not been an easy one, as the usual challenges of mounting a new show are complicated by the realities of travel. Take, for instance, the fantastical set by Oscar-winning production designer Hannah Beachler.

“You don’t know what it looks like yet, but you know you only have a certain number of trucks to transport the show, and you have to make it work inside 13 different houses, all with different parameters,” explains Williams. “Creatively, you’re working outside in, but you’re also making something that has to feel like a Broadway show from day one. We ended up with something modular that could morph to each theater’s needs; if a piece won’t fit in one city, we have an alternate version that will.”

The set isn’t the only thing that’s changed from city to city — and that’s a good thing. “Broadway is usually the place where shows get frozen and locked when they open, and we’ve seen many shows close after being open just two months there. Some shows, you wish they had another week or two to refine it,” says choreographer JaQuel Knight. “Whereas touring first has allowed us the luxury to sit with it, think about it, talk about it — how does it feel? Where do the issues live? Are we having troubles here? — and make changes. We’re able to really create the best version of this revival before we’re faced with the pressure of, ‘Oh my God, we’re on Broadway, I can’t change anything anymore.'”

Oz in the News 2.2.24

Hinton Battle, who played Scarecrow in Broadway’s ‘The Wiz,’ dies at 67 after long illness

Hinton Battle, the Tony-winning actor best known for originating the role of The Scarecrow in Broadway’s “The Wiz,” has died. He was 67.

Born in West Germany, Battle displayed an early aptitude for the arts. After studying at the Jones-Haywood School of Ballet, Battle received a scholarship to attend the School of American Ballet under the direction of famed choreographer George Balanchine, according to Playbill.

Battle made his Broadway debut in 1975 at the age of 18, starring as The Scarecrow in the original production of “The Wiz,” an adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

Battle went on to appear in other Broadway productions such as “Dreamgirls,” “Sophisticated Ladies,” “The Tap Dance Kid” and “Miss Saigon,” with the latter three shows earning him a trio of Tony Awards for best featured actor in a musical, per Playbill.

Battle’s illustrious career went beyond the theater. He scored guest roles on TV series including “Touched by An Angel,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Smash.” On the big screen, Battle returned to the “Dreamgirls” universe in 2006, playing Wayne in the film adaptation starring Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson and Jamie Foxx.

In the dance world, Hinton worked as a choreographer on the 65th and 66th Academy Awards, the Outkast musical “Idlewild,” “Bolden,” and “Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story.” He also directed and choreographed the off-Broadway musicals “Respect,” “The Marvelous Wonderettes,” the stage production of “Evil Dead,” and “Sistas: The Musical.”

‘El Otro Oz’ Review: There’s No Place Like (Your Ancestral) Home

Every dramatization of “The Wizard of Oz” seems to offer a pilgrimage to the Emerald City. But “El Otro Oz,” the inspired and imaginative interpretation now playing at Atlantic Stage 2, introduces additional journeys that are ultimately more poignant and profound.

When I first saw this Latin-flavored retelling of L. Frank Baum’s tale two years ago, I was most impressed by its comic inventiveness. (TheaterWorksUSA presented it then as a revised, more bilingual version of its own 2011 show “The Yellow Brick Road.”) That 2022 production, retitled “El Otro Oz” (Spanish for “The Other Oz”), included a pet Chihuahua named Toquito, a wizard who’s a disco diva and, in place of the withered Wicked Witch of the West, the sultry, flamenco-costumed Bruja del Oeste, whose magical castanets evoke a predatory rattlesnake.

None of these creative flourishes have changed, but whether it’s because of world events or the nuances of Melissa Crespo’s direction, I found this new production by Atlantic for Kids (the young people’s division of Atlantic Theater Company) as tender and moving as it is ebullient and funny.