The Wiz (1984 Footage)

[justincharacter]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 2:24pm

I just found these online and I am in awe of how beautiful this production was. I know the footage of the revival has been floating around the net for a while, but I haven't seen any with quality like this. You can check out the videos at this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9WiqDQ-o40gLToDqA6_nw/videos

 

Stephanie Mills is a freak of nature. The runs she does in falsetto at the end of "Be A Lion" would've been worth the ticket itself. I am still trying to figure out how she was able to hit those high notes while jumping around and kicking in the kick line in "Brand New Day". It's just crazy. The Tornado scene was also a highlight for me. I would've loved it if the NBC broadcast would've did something similar with the scene instead of trimming it and having Dorothy fly.

 

[Theater_Nerd]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 2:36pm

The whole 1984 revival is up in it's entirety > here

The 2015 live telecast is also up in it's entirety > here

 

The choreography for Ease On Down The Road #3 from the 1984 revival is really good. Those kicks and twirls from tiny Stephanie Mills! That's pure joy right there! 

[justincharacter]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 2:51pm

Yes! I saw the video of the whole one that you linked as well, and I prefer the one I found only because the quality seems much better. Maybe it's on my end but the sound is a little too dim on the full one and the lighting is very dark (you can't really see the Tornado scene and some others). But, thanks for the links!

 

I loved the choreography too! Stephanie Mills really enjoyed getting down on stage as you can tell!

Updated On: 12/19/15 at 02:51 PM

[Theater_Nerd]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 2:59pm

Oh yes the videos you linked are of much better sound/video quality. That Tornado sequence is just amazing!! 

[Hamilton22]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 3:34pm

This footage is absolutely stunning. I'm only on "I was born the day before yesterday" and it's already clear The Wiz was a stunning production. The Tornado sequence was probably one of the best and most creative things I have ever seen done onstage. A LITERAL  force of nature. Absolutely incredible. 

Updated On: 12/19/15 at 03:34 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 6:30pm

While the tempo is crazy-fast, this is the way I remember the Tornado Ballet! The concept and the choreography are lightyears ahead of the NBC version. This revival version is thrilling.

 

 

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 6:39pm

Loving the Emerald City Ballet too!

 

 

[Theater_Nerd]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 7:35pm

Watching these videos and the full video of the revival has given me a new appreciation of what this show manger to accomplish back in 1975. It really is a witty twist on the Oz legend and very very entertaining...even more so than the Live version that just aired. 

 

In my research I did notice that Geoffrey Holder revised the costumes in 1984. I noticed that in comparing the video and stills from the revival to the original stills from the 1975 production.

[maxkko]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 7:45pm

I love these videos, but why are most all of the tempos crazy fast?

[Theater_Nerd]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 7:50pm

The "Be A Lion" video is my favorite not only because of Stephanie Mills' vocal riffs...what an amazing voice she has! But my favorite part is when the lion lifts her up towards the end of the song and then they hug! TEARS!!!

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 9:20pm

Love the choreography and staging of the flying (Funky) Monkeys!

 

 

 

Also, here is Glinda's entrance, complete with watermelon crescent moon and (as Adaperle says) "Glinda's Theme Song" (A Rested Body Is a Rested Mind), cut from the NBC version. I love the laugh the moon gets. It's supposed to be funny and satirical. I think they really cut not only the ethnicity out of the production, but also the satire. They (up on stage) were all clearly in on the joke, and on the edgy perspective they were presenting. Maybe it's true, you can't get away with that today. By the way, I LOVE the set here and the costumes!

 

 

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 9:36pm

The other cut song from the NBC production, "Who Do You Think You Are?"

 

 

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 10:12pm

To finally see that tornado--WOW

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 12:17am

Glorious clips. Just goes to show how much more unique and lively the original production was.

 

Re: sped up - I bet it was an error in transferring the video from VHS.

[musicaltheatreman2]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 12:31am

The actress playing Glinda is Ann Duquesnay who won the Tony for Bring in the Noise Bring in the Funk! 

[amoni]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 12:38am

"I love these videos, but why are most all of the tempos crazy fast?"

 

It was obviously shot on a camcorder and the tape must have transferred sped up..There is no way the show was that fast. The whole show would have been over in 45 minutes.

[rattleNwoolypenguin]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 1:06am

 

These clips have made me realize The Wiz, in its original broadway and 84 revival production was inventive and funny and fresh and Stephanie Mills was just unbelievable. This is a show that deserved Best Musical that year clearly, but the film adaptation and subsequent productions I think fall incredibly flat and maybe this production was just lightning in a bottle.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the NBC live broadcast but I watched it with a grain of salt feeling like The Wiz as it's written is clunky and sometimes tedious but with fabulous music.

 

[justincharacter]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 2:20am

I'm watching these still! The show had such high energy, and you could tell even through video. The Tornado is just pure magic. The way it was performed with passion and how the creative team came up with the concept is incredible. The live orchestra was on the top of their game (as was the cast). But the orchestra, good grief, I just want a recording of them playing the score by themselves!

Updated On: 12/20/15 at 02:20 AM

[Theater_Nerd]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 3:58am

The "Home" video is amazing....what I love about it aside from Stephanie Mills' brilliant delivery are those pit singers accompanying her.....she just acquired a major new fan. I'm in love with her!

[Alan Henry]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 4:00am

amoni said: ""I love these videos, but why are most all of the tempos crazy fast?"

It was obviously shot on a camcorder and the tape must have transferred sped up..There is no way the show was that fast. The whole show would have been over in 45 minutes."

 

RE the Tempos:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1b5UJTpNfE

 

One way I check to see if audio/video on these bootleg recordings has been sped up is to compare the key of the song to the original. Of course, not all shows on bootleg have original cast recordings and not so then I compare with the score if available.

 

Luckily, The Wiz did have a cast recording. In it, Stephanie Mills recorded "Home" in the key of C, which is a match for the key in the video from this recording.

 

Now in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXUigiTOVQM which is another bootleg audio from The Wiz...

 

If you sit through it all and mark the vocal line very carefully you'll note that the key actually shifts in and out of C and Db multiple times, showing at sections the audio is sped up a % which would actually be fairly easy to calculate with some typical off the shelf audio programs. If you have the time, it's easy to fix.

 

New technologies do allow for us to change the pitch of recordings without speed and vice versa, but for tape transfers, pitch changes are one of the easiest indicators of a change in tempo.

 

Anyways, unless each of those clips were transferred at different times/speeds - which is possible - the tempos should be accurate. Home is indicative of normal transfer speeds and sounds normal.

 

Perhaps someone else who saw the production could weigh in.

Updated On: 12/20/15 at 04:00 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 6:19am

I saw the national tour of the original production, not the revival, and the tempos were definitely not that fast.

 

I'm realizing now, watching these clips and the show itself, that this would be the equivalent of someone deciding to revive "The Book of Mormon" in 40 years, only to say, "We have to redo the book and concept! It's so dated, and nobody would find that satire funny today!" They're missing the point. It IS satire. The cast is in on the joke. So is the director. So is the concept. The audience laughs at the satirical humor. Is it racist? Prejudiced? No more than a Saturday Night Live sketch is.

 

By stripping out the "offensive" humor and any of the concept that was seemingly offensive, they have defanged and declawed "The Wiz" for a new generation, presenting it as a straightforward telling of "The Wizard of Oz" with a black cast ... and that's pretty much it.

 

They really missed the boat on the NBC production. Perhaps it was a bit too SNL for prime-time TV to present it in its original way. Perhaps people aren't "in on the joke today." It's not a question of being PC any more than we should question the political correctness of SNL or Book of Mormon, and decide to creatively change all of that in the name of a "wider" audience.

 

I think now you can see why I have been saying the NBC production was so "sanitized." They scrubbed the tongue-in-cheek humor and satire right out of it.

Updated On: 12/20/15 at 06:19 AM

[maxkko]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 11:51am

best12bars said: "I saw the national tour of the original production, not the revival, and the tempos were definitely not that fast.

 

  I'm realizing now, watching these clips and the show itself, that this would be the equivalent of someone deciding to revive "The Book of Mormon" in 40 years, only to say, "We have to redo the book and concept! It's so dated, and nobody would find that satire funny today!" They're missing the point. It IS satire. The cast is in on the joke. So is the director. So is the concept. The audience laughs at the satirical humor. Is it racist? Prejudiced? No more than a Saturday Night Live sketch is.

 

 

 

By stripping out the "offensive" humor and any of the concept that was seemingly offensive, they have defanged and declawed "The Wiz" for a new generation, presenting it as a straightforward telling of "The Wizard of Oz" with a black cast ... and that's pretty much it.

 

 

 

They really missed the boat on the NBC production. Perhaps it was a bit too SNL for prime-time TV to present it in its original way. Perhaps people aren't "in on the joke today." It's not a question of being PC any more than we should question the political correctness of SNL or Book of Mormon, and decide to creatively change all of that in the name of a "wider" audience.

 

I think now you can see why I have been saying the NBC production was so "sanitized." They scrubbed the tongue-in-cheek humor and satire right out of it."

 

This. I was just thinking about this, and I couldn't agree more.

 

Updated On: 12/20/15 at 11:51 AM

[Nefertiti]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 12:14pm

According to this footage the show runs over 2 hours, whilst NBC's version was 1 hour and 51 minutes. Does that mean, there were cuts?

As noted earlier the original had very fast tempos and honestly I prefer Mills as Dorothy than Williams. She looked perfect in every way.

 

[Hamilton22]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 12:23pm

Yes of course there were cuts. They cut a handful of songs and dialogue for the broadcast.

[amoni]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 1:11pm

"Anyways, unless each of those clips were transferred at different times/speeds"

The Tornado has to be. If you watch Stephanie Mills and Auntie Em, they are spinning very fast and the dancers in the tornado. It definitely looks and sounds sped up. I saw the original as a kid fourth row and it was slower, not slow, per say just less manic. Even as a kid I remember when the "Eye Of The Storm" came out  I thought it was so clever and the dance was elegant. The video runs 3:02 and includes Dorothy and Em before the music starts and the OCA the music alone runs 3:25