The Riverside Press-Enterprise
‘The Wiz’ IS REBORN
The 1970s musical heads to Los Angeles — only it's not so '70s anymore
“The Wiz” changed everything, and it’s ready to do so again.
An all-black update of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” the 1974 “super soul musical” went on to win seven Tony Awards, including for best musical and for Charlie Smalls’ original score. It became a star-studded 1978 movie with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Lena Horne and Richard Pryor.
Now a newly revamped and updated version of “The Wiz” is coming to Los Angeles’ Pantages Theatre as it eases on down the road toward its Broadway revival this spring. The tour started in September in Baltimore, where the musical originally premiered 50 years ago.
It’s helmed by Schele Williams, director of the recent revival of Disney’s “Aida” and one of the stars of its original production, and the creative team includes such powerhouses as Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” choreographer Jaquel Knight and “Black Panther” scenic designer Hannah Beachler. Comedian and TV host Wayne Brady plays the titular Wiz.
Comedian Amber Ruffin, writer for “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and star of NBC’S “The Amber Ruffin Show,” was brought in to rewrite William F. Brown’s original book for the musical. Ruffin also co-wrote the stage musical of “Some Like it Hot” that hit Broadway in 2022.
“The thing that is really ’70s about ‘The Wiz’ is all of that ’70s slang,” Ruffin says. “Any time it comes out of anyone’s mouth, it feels like a punchline, even though it’s not. It’s just people talking. And it highlights how ’70s the songs are, when with just the tiniest of tweaks, the songs are timeless. If you remove all those ‘jive turkeys’ and stuff, it’s a timeless show.”
For Ruffin, the yellow brick road to Broadway started with another production of “The Wiz” at the Muny Theatre in St. Louis in 2018, where she was brought in to punch up the script. When the Broadway revival needed an update, she was a natural choice.
“I remember loving the poppies as a kid, and now I’m like, yeah, I don’t want to have these people on a bunch of drugs and flipping out,” Ruffin says. “And the police mice had to go. I mean, the police mice had to go in 2018, but you bet your butt after 2020 we will not be seeing any police mice.”
Ruffin has a lot of early memories of watching the movie with her family as a child, but she didn’t see the stage musical until her teens.
“Benson High School in Omaha, Nebraska, did ‘The Wiz,’ and it was so fantastic,” Ruffin says. “That was the year after I graduated high school. The year before, we had done ‘Once Upon a Mattress,’ and I was Princess Winnifred, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is the best. Someone wrote a musical just for me.’ And then I saw ‘The Wiz.’ That teacher really knew what she was doing. She was like, let’s have Amber make fart noises and faces, and then let’s have Christie sing people’s faces off.”
For director Williams, the impact of the stage musical was profound.
“I saw the show when I was 7 years old in Dayton, Ohio, when the touring company came through,” Williams says. “And my mouth was wide open for 2½ hours. I remember thinking it was the most magical thing I had ever seen. The story I had grown up with, suddenly I had a place inside it as a young Black girl. And I had never once imagined that. I’ve heard so many people say, ‘When I watched “The Wizard of Oz,” I saw myself as Dorothy.’ I had never seen myself inside the story. I was always on the outside looking in. But when I saw ‘The Wiz,’ I was on the inside for the very first time.”
In fact, “The Wiz” literally changed her life.
“My senior year of high school, I was Dorothy in ‘The Wiz,’ ” Williams recalls. “My dad is a professional drummer, and I grew up as a drummer. But for this particular show, I wanted to be in the show, not just play in the pit. I really loved being onstage, and it changed the trajectory of my entire life. I was going to go to college as a music major, and then that show finished and I wanted to be an actor. I had probably one of the most awkward conversations a 17-year-old can have with their parents. ‘Hey, you know all those years of private lessons that you’ve invested in and these dreams we’ve talked about? I just did a show, and I want to upend all of those things.’ To their credit, they knew that when I was determined to do something, there was just no turning back, and that I was going to throw my all into it.”
To the cast and crew members, participating in this “Wiz” is not just about dazzling theatergoers but revitalizing the show to inspire the next generation and the next after that. That involves making the musical not quite so firmly rooted in its time.
“In the ’70s, the show was perfect,” says Ruffin. “And now we get this opportunity to rewrite it and do our best to make sure that this version can last 30, 40, 50 years.”