The manufacturing will function the Broadway follow-up for Amber Ruffin, whose co-written 'Some Like It Sizzling' debuts this month.
The Wiz is easing on all the way down to Broadway.
The beloved Black-led, music-infused spin on the Wizard of Oz is slated to return as a reimagined revival in Spring 2024, producers introduced Thursday. Amber Ruffin, whose co-written Some Like It Sizzling with Matthew López is about to open on Broadway this December, is connected to offer extra materials for the restricted engagement.
The “all-new” manufacturing of the Tony-winning musical tailored from L. Frank Baum’s youngsters’s e book will function the Broadway directorial debut for Schele Williams.
“I wouldn’t be on Broadway if it wasn’t for The Wiz,” Williams stated in an announcement. “The music, the costumes, the choreography and Stephanie Mills! Seeing that present modified my life. It's, in each approach, a celebration of Black excellence. I'm honored to helm this manufacturing and I can’t consider a greater time to inform this story.”
William F. Brown will write the e book, with a rating by Charlie Smalls and others. Music supervision, orchestrations and music preparations can be helmed by Joseph Joubert with choreography led by Jaquel Knight in his Broadway debut.
“I'm thrilled my father’s music and The Wiz is returning to Broadway,” stated Michael Smalls, son of The Wiz composer Charlie Smalls, in an announcement. “I'm so comfortable to know a brand new technology can be discovering these fantastic songs and be taught of my father’s extraordinary expertise.”
“There’s not one piece of artwork that has had affect on widespread tradition like The Wiz,” Knight stated in his personal assertion. “I’m humbled to not solely have the chance to go away my very own mark on a real murals, however to proceed the storytelling and legacy constructing on the fantastic thing about blackness by way of dance, motion, & angle.”
Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson, Brian Anthony Moreland and Ambassador Theatre Group will function the musical’s producer group. Casting is helmed by Tara Rubin Casting with the manufacturing’s design group to be introduced at a later date.
“The Wiz is a beloved, joyous and implausible musical celebrating Black excellence,” the producers stated in a joint assertion. “Impressed by the unique visions of Geoffrey Holder and George Faison, we're honored to offer method to a brand new technology of Black artists who love this present as a lot as we do. We're thrilled to now deliver The Wiz to theatergoers across the U.S. and on Broadway.”
Earlier than The Wiz returns to Broadway, it would first go on a nationwide tour, beginning in the identical metropolis the place the unique Tony-winning manufacturing staged its 1974 world premiere. Opening in the autumn of 2023, the present will kick off its tour in Baltimore on the Hippodrome Theatre earlier than arriving in New York.
After opening in Baltimore at Morris A. Mechanic Theatre, The Wiz made its Broadway debut in 1975 on the Majestic Theatre, happening to win seven Tony Awards together with greatest musical, greatest unique rating and greatest route of a musical. The unique manufacturing ran 4 years for a complete of 1,672 performances and included a switch to The Broadway Theatre.
André DeShields, Phylicia Rashad, Mabel King, Grace Jones, LaChanze, Colman Domingo, Orlando Jones and Ashanti are just some of the notable names featured in main productions of The Wiz between its pre-Broadway run and its 2009 Encores! manufacturing.
The long-lasting 1978 movie adaptation starred Diana Ross, Ted Ross, Mabel King, Richard Pryor and Lena Horne, and served as Quincy Jones’ first collaboration with Michael Jackson. The Wiz Dwell!, NBC’s TV manufacturing of the stage model, was broadcast in 2015.