Actors - The Wiz

	Actors - The Wiz

The Wiz is both a 1975 Broadway musical and a 1978 film urbanized adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, which features entirely of African American actors. The play features music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls, and a book by William F. Brown.

History

Broadway musical

The Broadway musical opened in January 1975 with Stephanie Mills as Dorothy, Hinton Battle as Scarecrow, Tiger Haynes as Tin Man, Ted Ross as Lion, Dee Dee Bridgewater as Glinda the Good Witch, André DeShields as the Wiz and Mabel King as Evillene the Wicked Witch of the West. The production was directed by Geoffrey Holder. It ran for four years and over 1600 performances, and won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The most popular song from the production was "Ease on Down the Road", sung by the characters as they dance down the Yellow Brick Road.

It never performed on London's West End, but a handful of amateur and semi-professional productions have appeared in Britain with black and non-black casts.

Motion picture

The movie was directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Joel Schumacher and filmed at Astoria Studios York City. It was produced by Motown Productions and released to theaters by Universal Pictures. The decaying New York State pavilion from the 1964 New York World's Fair, in its final appearance in a film, is used as the set for Munchkinland, as well as the World Trade Center (which serves as the Emerald City). Mabel King and Ted Ross from the Broadway production reprised their roles for the film; the rest of the cast included Diana Ross (Dorothy), Michael Jackson (Scarecrow), Nipsey Russell (Tin Man), Richard Pryor (The Wiz), and Lumet's mother-in-law, Lena Horne, as Glinda the Good Witch.

Quincy Jones served as the musical supervisor and music producer for the film, marking his first collaboration with Michael Jackson. Jones would produce three hit albums for Jackson: Off the Wall
, Thriller
, and Bad
.

Despite the talent involved, critics panned the production. Many critics directed their venom at thirty-four year-old Diana Ross, who they believed was too old to play Dorothy. Motown's original choice to play Dorothy was fifteen-year-old Stephanie Mills, a veteran of the stage play; Mills was replaced after Ross went to Universal and had them cast her as Dorothy (going around Motown CEO Berry Gordy, who had refused to cast Ross as Dorothy). Most agreed that what had worked so successfully on stage simply didn't translate well to the screen. The Wiz was later nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Music Score, although it did not win any of those awards.

The Wiz proved to be a financial failure, losing ten million dollars upon its original theatrical release, and essentially marked the end of Hollywood's "blaxploitation" era. The pop single version of "Ease on Down the Road", sung by Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, failed to become a hit.

Today, the film is seen as a cult classic, particularly among African-American audiences. It has been available on home video since the 1980s, and is periodically broadcast on television.

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Actors - The Wiz

History

Broadway musical

Motion picture

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