Online Theatre – “The Wiz” This Weekend

More in-person venues are opening open up as stay-at-home restrictions are being relaxed, but theaters are still closed to avoid spreading COVID-19. Fortunately you can still enjoy live-theatre virtually.

YouTube channel The Shows Must Go On! has announced that it will continue to screen a musical every week for the foreseeable future, reported Time Out.com (recently renamed Time In!) a global leisure and entertainment website. Each show goes live on the channel on Friday at 7pm BST (10 a.m. Pacific Time) and usually remains viewable for 48 hours afterward. In addition to full-length videos, the channel streams clips and behind-the-scenes footage.

According to Timeout.com:

Last week, in solidarity with protests for racial equality around the world, The Shows Must Go On! canceled its scheduled stream of 2014’s ‘Peter Pan Live!’. This week, it moves on to a far superior entertainment: NBC’s joyous 2015 live broadcast of ‘The Wiz’.

An African-American spin on ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘The Wiz’ was a hit on Broadway in 1975 and was adapted into a 1978 Diana Ross film that has grown in public affection. The musical holds a special place in many hearts, but some of its ’70s trappings have not aged well. There are many ways that ‘The Wiz’ could have gone wrong—but instead, it bursts strongly right out of the Kansas-farm gate. The first number is a ballad for Aunt Em, played here by Stephanie Mills, who originated the role of Dorothy on Broadway. In the first of the evening’s many memorable musical performances, Mills knocks the song out of the cornfield. It’s an inspired bit of casting: a respectful nod to history and nostalgia that also sends a message about the values of the broadcast. This isn’t bringing ‘The Wiz’ to America; this is bringing America to ‘The Wiz’.