THE WIZ 2024 Broadway Cast Recording Thread — Page 2

It is definitely the arrangement of No Bad News, I remember being truly baffled in the theatre when I heard it. It does nothing for the song, Melody, or the story. Confusing for such an actor with such a stunning voice! And such a classic number in The Wiz, just odd.

"I still think it’s criminal they didn’t record the Emerald City sequence, it’s some of the best music in the whole show"

This was one of the main reasons why I was excited to hear this album. Supremely disappointing that it was not recorded. Loved that Act 2 opening.

This cast recording just makes me wish all the more that The Wiz LIVE! had transferred as planned. I prefer the arrangements in that production almost track-for-track. And nobody seemed to have the same complaints about the direction and production design that have plagued this revival.

I didn’t know that cast recordings could also have the ability to take you to church, and if it really did, this Wiz would be an example of one.

This is one of the best-sung musicals on Broadway right now, the cast mastering every entry in the soul voice thesaurus. They’re helped out a lot by some exuberant new orchestrations (by Joseph Joubert). Not a weak link in the vocal department, I thought each principal actor I heard was better than the last.

The beloved score has been brought to new heights. “You Can’t Win” handily bests the MJ version.

For a record label that doesn’t exactly specialize in cast albums, I thought Interscope stepped up their mixing job considerably compared to last year’s Parade. Impressive.

I can only hope the physical production isn’t as schlocky as some of us think if I make it out to the Marquis this summer.

Updated On: 6/19/24 at 02:31 PM

I’be played this album so much that I’ve now gained an appreciation for Melody’s version of No Bad News.


Be A Lion is such a standout that I understand why it’s the top streamed song on Spotify.

Anyways - the cast performed at Broadway In Bryant Park yesterday and were fantastic! Anyone go?

No because they messed up the score. Both with new arrangements and orchestrations. Even if they just stuck to what was on the page, we’d say, well it’s not a great production but it’s still the wiz. Why mess with a good thing?

Hello all! I saw the second to last Broadway date of this show, and....I LOVED IT!

So the show is over being on Broadway, so who is this review for? Well, some people wanna know how a show was even if it is a show from the past, and there is always the tour to see! This review is really just for people who love The Wiz or theater in general and just love hearing about it!

I have always loved The Wiz ever since I was a little kid who fell in love with The Wizard of Oz. A daycare teacher who knew I loved that movie and story asked if I had ever seen The Wiz. I hadn't, so I looked for it at Blockbuster, found it, watched it, and fell in love with that one, too! It got many rentals from me. I loved the ambience and atmosphere of the movie. It was very epic, dark, and even haunting. I loved details like the throw game acapella men singing "Ohhh" along with the Tin Man tap dancing. It was creepy, but in a good way! And I loved the songs! Plus the costumes and silver slippers!

Anyway, when I saw pictures of the actual Broadway show, I was disappointed, and yet somehow that show won Best Costumes! Haha! Eventually I saw a video of the first revival, I believe, of the Broadways show, and it was nice to see the whole thing. It did seem to have a less good book than the movie script to me, and I didn't like all the songs that weren't in the movie (except I kinda dug "I Was Born on the Day Before Yesterday" ), but what I was most amazed by was Stephanie Mills singing "Home" in a clip from the original production. Damn! That was amazing! I loved the audience clapping in the middle for her "Reeeal to me!" It was magic.

So I wanted to see The Wiz on Broadway regardless of the bad reviews it got. And I was totally surprised how good it was and how much I liked it. I liked that Dorothy sings some of "Soon as I Get Home". It added to how sad she was she had lost her old home and had to be in Kansas. I did not mind her making up with Aunt Em before the tornado. I loved the tornado music and the dancers with their costumes moving the way they did, and how the tornado scene was done.

The jokes were great. The book was great in that regard. I also did not mind a single bit of the A.I. aided backgrounds...except for the weird curling plants in the Emerald City, that even showed up in the Wiz's throne room! What the hell? Whatever, they weren't egregious. But I enjoyed the trying to make Munchkinland (which should have had people named Munchkins...and Toto should have been included in Kansas!) look like an otherworldly, Ozian kind of city, as well as Emerald City was, and the swirling clouds for the Scarecrow's scene was a nice touch to me.

I did not like that the Scarecrow used to be a scientist turned into a scarecrow. It meant the character was not always who we had always known him to be, and it kind of took away the identity we Oz-lovers want him to have. And it made even less sense to me when the Tin Man and Lion always used to be the way they were! Or did the Tin Man used to be a human, like in the Baum book? If that was the case (I can't remember what this revival said), then that makes it slightly more ok, but then when Evilene gets defeated, shouldn't the Scarecrow and Tin Man have turned back into humans? So...yeah, I didn't like that bit. Just have Evilene take out the Scarecrow's brain and the Tin Man's heart!

But the Scarecrow sure had a cute costume. His slightly-different-shaded parts of his pants really outlined his butt lol. I actually liked all of the costumes! I was surprised that I did, lol. Glinda's was gorgeous, both with the sleeves and without. I also really loved Evilene's. Speaking of Glinda, her singing "He's the Wiz" was slightly less worse than people here made it out to be, book-wise, but...yeah, it would have been better if Adaperle sang the song herself, did not know the secret of the silver slippers, and Glinda did, and she just appeared at the end. Aside from all that, the book was good. Maybe not great, but good. I did like the attempt at adding more Evilene (though I did not get her "All I have to do is stay black and die" joke till my friend I went with explained the Harlem Renaissance poet reference!), and the way the Scarecrow helped Dorothy defeat her, and I loved that "I'm a Dorothy!" running joke so much.

I kind of liked that the Wizard only chose to live in Emerald City because he had to. I think the original Baum and Wiz and Wiz Live! did all that handling of the Wiz character better, but this was not a bad change to me, either. Just something different they tried that was good in its own way. Not better, just different and still good.

Now, even though the jokes, and the acting, were funny (the actors all knew how to make their jokes funny, right down to Dorothy's hilarious look when Adeperle tells her the shoes will get her home!), there was something that went on a bit too much. It's what I call dance-mugging. It was like every time an actor could get "too into a moment/dance", they extended the dance to get laughs. I think that joke is appropriate and funny when used sometimes, but it seemed they relied on it way too much!

Finally, the singing was freaking phenomenal. The best singers were the core group, especially Dorothy. Her acting was good, not great, but good. Could have used some real crying, or what felt more like real sadness, but for all I know she was truly sad and I just didn't feel it, so maybe she just needed to push it more, I don't know. But when they did the arrangement of "Home", where she went "ReeeeaaaaAAAALL to me", and the audience clapped, it was just like the magic from that clip of Stephanie Mills singing the song and doing a riff on that part. Oh, how magical my experience seeing the Wiz was. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

I liked the singing so much, I may buy the cast recording. But I am saving my money for other things right now, we shall see. The only bad arrangements to me were a deflated "Ease on Down the Road" and "No Bad News", and I swear the song the four main players sing before they go to Evilene's I had never heard before (any help? Was it in the original production, or written new?), but I think I'd love to listen to this cast singing again and again.

If you got this far, thanks for reading! I hope you can see the show!

Updated On: 8/21/24 at 01:19 PM

Wow, that was the perfect thing to help me! Thank you!