From the ATC board: rumoured to be early casting offers for La Jolla - I hope to God this is not right:
Dorothy: Shoshana Bean Evilene: Marty Testa The Lion: Titus Burgess
Awful choices if true (except for Burgess who is wonderful), but lets keep in mind that the La Jolla production is NOT yet Broadway bound.
EDIT: I'm revising the title, no use to be negative as most of the casting that is coming to fruition is pretty good. Still hate the idea of Mary Testa, but we'll focus on the positive.
Maybe Des is making her a 35 year old school teacher like in that awful movie.
This has come up before in other threads but I'll say it again. There is NO NEED to update the WIZ. It is a 1970s black R&B/Funk/Gospel musicalization of the story.
THE WIZARD OF OZ is in public domain, and if La Jolla wants to do a modern take on it, they should just hire a composing team to write their own hip hop/rap multi-ethnic version of the Baum novel.
well the up to shoshana being Dorothy is that she has a very soulful voice....make-up? masks? paper bags? Shoshana does look a lot older than Dorothy. Though I wouldn't exactly detest Mary Testa in here...
"Picture "The View," with the wisecracking, sympathetic sweethearts of that ABC television show replaced by a panel of embittered, suffering or enraged Arab women" -the Times review of Black Eyed
What's it matter that she's an Ex-Elphaba? It's a tough role to sing and it's in a big major Broadway hit. I don't get why people bash someone for playing the part.
Whatever happened to the updated ethnic version of the Wizard of Oz with Patti Labelle as the Wicked Witch and Queen Latifah as Glinda, along with Monica as Dorothy?
I don't WANT to live in what they call "a certain way." In the first place I'd be no good at it and besides that I don't want to be identified with any one class of people. I want to live every whichway, among all kinds---and know them---and understand them---and love them---THAT's what I want! - Philip Barry (Holiday)
Wasn't Anika noni Rose supposed to do it at some point? I acutally wouldn't mind Mary Testa. She's def got a presence for it. Also FYI they're changing the whole thing up. It's much more modern using Hip hop and a lot of urban sounds. It's being reorchestrated. The choreography in the audition was sort of African and REDICULOUSLY hard. A Couple of people just walked outta the room. It'll be interesting how they update it.