An Approach to the Wizard of Oz

I didn't really want to do The Wizard of Oz. It's not my favourite play - not by a long chalk - and I've seen so many really twee performances of it that it seemed emphatically a show not to be done by me. But we had a problem: we had two Year 11s, three Year 10s, a few Year 8s and 9s who were mainly chorus people, but a huge number of Year 7s who were both enthusiastic and talented. Finding a show which was suitable for such a mixture and which also achieved the standards that we want was not easy.

Our problem was complicated by the fact that it was our turn to take our production to Wuppertal, so the show had to be one which would appeal to a very wide audience of Germans, most, but not all, of whom speak quite good English .

As we racked our brains trying to think of something suitable for such an age range of actors and such a diverse audience as the kids from school and a very mixed German group, we kept coming back to Wizard of Oz until, at last, we thought we'd just have to go for that.

One of the biggest problems of the play for me is the Munchkins. For a start, they're so stupid. And people play them as being so jolly and happy and lovable. How can they be happy? They're scared stiff. They're ruled over by an evil witch whom even the Sorceress of the North can't overcome.

Then there are the Ozians, the people of the Emerald City - air heads!

And I have to confess that I've always found the ending weak. The Wizard himself is totally unconvincing.

However I do like the music - well, most of it.

Add to this the fact that, although the Year 7s were undoubtedly keen and talented, I didn't really know them, it became obvious that I had to adopt a rather different approach to this show to that which I had been used to for the last few years.

I still had to do the usual preparation, however, and so I began assembling my ideas. The first thing, of course, was the peculiar problems which the German visit would present. To begin with, a full set with flats, trucks and so on, was totally out of the question. First of all, it wouldn't fit into the bus, but even if it did, there was the fact that we would be playing in three different venues (our German colleagues had suggested one show in the Arts Centre and two in different schools), only one of which we knew and all were unlikely to have similar dimensions to our own stage.

I'm not a great one for complex sets anyway, which means I'm totally out of tune with modern trends in musicals. Whilst I don't agree with Clive Barnes that, with British musicals, the audience comes out whistling the scenery, I still prefer to keep it to a minimum. I have seen too many school shows where so much attention has been lavished on the set that there seems to have been little time left for actual acting! However I had to make sure that, at least, Oz was differentiated from Kansas, so I decided on cut-outs. These were four triangles about six feet high and three/four feet wide, on which were painted huge flowers. The flowers, in fact, were so big that only part of them could be seen. These wold be brought on to show the transition to Oz, and would be moved around the stage to signify a change of scene. For the scenes in the witch's castle they were removed.

From a practical point of view each triangle had to be made in two separate pieces for transport. The length was OK but the bus company told me that a width of two feet was the maximum for easy storage in the locker, so each triangle was made in two pieces which bolted together for performance.

The only other bit of scenery we used was a cut-out cauldron for the witch's castle.

And once I got that sorted, it was time to work on the costumes.

Part I
Part II
Part III