The Wiz Research

The Wiz


The Wiz is a musical that is a soul version of the Wizard of OZ and written by William.F.Brown and lyrics and music by Charlie Smalls. Fox agreed to back the show in exchange for a first option on a film version, publishing rights and first option on the soundtrack album. It was capitalized at $650,000. It first started  October 21, 1974 in Baltimore at the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre, Maryland and  then moved to the Majestic Theatre on January 5th 1975 with director Geoffrey Holder who replaced the original director Gilbert Moses the third and they had a new cast. The Wiz book was the original idea of Ken harper who then entrusted Brown to adapt L. Frank Baum's novel The Wonderful Wizard Of OZ to a more African-American culture including black street slang as well as incorporating Charlie Smalls lyrics and music.


When it first started travelling Harper considered closing it all down due to slow business and small profit. By the point of starting at the Majestic Theatre, Fox's investment was around a million dollars but with the weekly cost being around $67,000 and the box office barely gaining half of that, they had to put a closing notice. Doing this the producers then were able to persuade 20th topper Dennis Stanfill to commit $110,000 more for a four-week promo blitz, including a then-radical concept: TV ads. As a result the box office doubled within the first week and then just kept gaining through time.


There was then a film version created in 1978 Produced by Rob Cohen and directed by Sidney Lumet. The cast consisted of :
Dorothy - Stephanie Mills
Scarecrow - Michael Jackson
Cowardly Lion - Ted Ross
Tinman -Nipsey Russell
and others.

However in this version they slightly changed it for example normally based in Kansas its based in New York and Dorothy played by Diana Ross a kindergarten teacher, changing these elements made it one of the most expensive musicals ever made as had to use many New York Locations as well as different studios and the cast.

They then did a live TV version of it in 2015 called The Wiz Live featuring Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Stephanie Mills who was the original Dorothy on Broadway as Aunt Em, Amber Riley and others. This version was more similar to the play than the film however the producers felt they need to jazz it up a bit to keep it modern, they did not change anything drastically just refurbish some of the songs to attract a wider audience. This event really helped out the musical as it is seen to be coming back to Broadway 2016-17 season.


References:
I found a lot of my info from these places:
http://www.refinery29.com/2015/12/98553/the-wiz-live-preview
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/the-wiz-broadway-tv-1201651417/