| The Wiz | |
|---|---|
| The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" | |
.jpg) Original Cast Recording | |
| Music | Charlie Smalls Timothy Graphenreed Harold Wheeler George Faison Luther Vandross |
| Lyrics | Charlie Smalls Zachary Walzer Luther Vandross[1] |
| Book | William F. Brown |
| Basis | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum |
| Productions | 1974 Detroit tryout 1974 Philadelphia tryout 1975 Broadway 1976 US tour 1978 Film 1984 Broadway revival 2022 Mexico City 2023 US tour 2024 Broadway revival 2025 US tour |
| Awards | Tony Award for Best Musical Tony Award for Best Original Score |
The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls (and others) and book by William F. Brown. It is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) in the context of contemporary African-American culture. It opened on October 21, 1974, at the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore,[2] and moved to Broadway's Majestic Theatre[3] with a new cast on January 5, 1975.
The 1975 Broadway production won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It was an early example of Broadway's mainstream acceptance of works with an all-Black cast. It has had revivals in New York, London, San Diego, and the Netherlands, and a limited-run revival was presented by Encores! at New York City Center in June 2009. A big-budget film adaptation of the same name was released in 1978, with Ted Ross and Mabel King reprising their roles. A live television production of the stage version, The Wiz Live!, was broadcast on NBC on December 3, 2015, with an encore presentation on December 19 of the same year.
- ^ "Las Vegas CityLife". Archived from the original on 2013-01-27. Retrieved 2011-10-21.
- ^ Gardner, R. H. (22 October 1974). "'Wiz' fun at times but doesn't whiz". The Sun (Baltimore). p. B-1. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
- ^ This was not the same Majestic Theatre that played The Wizard of Oz in 1903, which was on Columbus Circle, where Time Warner Center now stands.