Music director Jon Lorenz, one of the creators of Lamb\u2019s perennial \u201cMixtape,\u201d wrote the \u201cOz\u201d adaptation, music and lyrics, and Kerry Meads is the director.<\/p>\n There are no ruby slippers, no \u201cOver the Rainbow,\u201d and no Toto, who is represented only by his bark. But rather than dwell on what is not, let us look at what is.<\/p>\n Lorenz\u2019s score is tuneful, with Woodsman\u2019s \u201cHollow\u201d and Lion\u2019s \u201cMy Great Sorrow\u201d among the best. There\u2019s an ingenious yellow brick road. There are \u201cMunch Kins,\u201d flying monkeys, Winkies, Emerald City citizens, and, best of all, a quintet of lovable leading actors to portray Dorothy (Megan Carmitchel), the Lion (Fernando Vega), the Woodsman (Bryan Barbarin), the Scarecrow (James Royce Edwards), and that great humbug, Oz himself (John Rosen). Deborah Gilmour Smyth portrays Aunt Em plus the kindly witch Tatty Poo and the wicked Witch of the West, who does a miraculous melt right before our eyes.<\/p>\n Most Oz inhabitants have a slight Celtic lilt to their speech, and costume designer Jeannie Reith has a wizard of a time with their hats and attire, delineating each group, with a wonderful assist by Coni\u2019s wigs. Reith\u2019s Lion, Woodsman and Scarecrow costumes are marvels of detail and craft.<\/p>\n Each character is portrayed to the hilt (Lion\u2019s voice has a telltale, Bert Lahr bleat in places); their voices are extraordinary, including Carmitchel\u2019s. Their culminating trio, \u201cAll I Ever Wanted and More,\u201d and the show-topping \u201cHome\u201d (the trio plus Dorothy, Glinda and Company) bring nostalgic tears to one\u2019s eyes. Along with Dorothy we feel a deep longing for the Midwest, despite its \u201cGray,\u201d and the love we received as children.<\/p>\n Meads does a fine job of imbuing both story and stage with a feeling of simple storytelling. She is assisted by a total of 14 singing and dancing actors, Mike Buckley\u2019s set, Colleen Kollar Smith\u2019s choreography, Nathan Peirson\u2019s lighting design, Smyth\u2019s sound design and Blake McCarty\u2019s projection design. Playing Taylor Peckham\u2019s orchestration of Lorenz\u2019s rock, folk and ragtime score, an eight-piece band is conducted from the keyboard by Patrick Marion.<\/p>\n Among the fabulous understatements in Lorenz\u2019s book are two personal favorites: Uncle Henry\u2019s \u201cCould be a storm comin\u2019\u201d as he tries to load the storm shelter, and Dorothy\u2019s \u201cOh, that is not regular\u201d when she first lays eyes on Oz.<\/p>\n For the record, Baum created his own successful musical theater adaptation of \u201cThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz.\u201d There have been many screen and stage adaptations since: Among the most successful are the 1939 MGM film with Judy Garland, for whom \u201cOver the Rainbow\u201d was written; the 1975 stage musical titled \u201cThe Wiz\u201d; and Stephen Schwartz\u2019s 2003 Broadway musical, \u201cWicked,\u201d based upon Gregory Maguire\u2019s far afield novel.<\/p>\n \u2014\u00a0<\/em>Charlene Baldridge ha estado escribiendo sobre las artes desde 1979. Puedes seguir su blog en\u00a0<\/em>charlenebaldridge.com<\/a>\u00a0o llegar a ella en\u00a0charb81@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Por Charlene Baldridge<\/p>","protected":false},"author":731,"featured_media":249300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"\u2018Oz\u2019 is awesome","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/731"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"(l](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/650webtop.jpg\")
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(Foto por Ken Jacques)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"(l](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/656.jpg\")
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(Foto por Ken Jacques)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/639.jpg\")
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<\/a>\u201cOz: a wondrous new musical\u201d is a storm of an original that lies close to its source, Baum\u2019s first telling of the great American fairytale. It is anything but regular, and I urge theatregoers to take their families to appreciate and enjoy what it is.<\/p>\n