Wednesday nights are when Haze and I have our season tickets for the Broadway series downtown, and this Wednesday it was the tour production of The Wizard of Oz. I wasn't too apprehensive about seeing the show, even though I have yet to see the movie all the way through - I turn it off when the Wicked Witch sends the flying monkeys after Dorothy.
From what I understand, this adaptation (by the Royal Shakespear Co. in 1987) stays fairly true to the MGM movie. The cast was pretty good. Dorothy could have had a stronger singing voice, but I may be spoiled by hearing Judy Garland's version of Over the Rainbow. The 3 guys who played the Scarecrow, Tinman and Cowardly Lion were exceptionally good. Some of the munchkins seemed a little unsure of themselves or not quite comfortable with their parts, but in doing my research for this blog I found that a dozen of the Munchkins were actually local kids from Jacksonville's Studio 1014. That's pretty cool!
My favorite character (and he seemed to be the crowd's favorite too) didn't have a single line in the show, but he didn't miss an entrance. Dusty played the role of Toto. Everytime he came running on stage and into Dorothy's arms, you could hear a little "awww" from the audience. Very, very well trained actor he was.
As season ticket holders, we typically are sitting by the same folks at each show, however, the two seats to my left were occupied this night by a father and his 3 year old daughter. She was all dressed up for a night at the theatre. When the lights went down and the Oz emblem displayed on the curtain, she crawled into her dad's lap so she could see over the wall of the orchestra pit. Curtain up, jaw down. She literally dropped her jaw and just stared at the actors on stage when the show started. It was adorable. (They left at intermission because the show was so long.)
It was an enjoyable night of theatre. I may try to watch the movie again ... just hide the remote when the monkey's start flying!
TTFN!
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