Wizard Of Oz

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Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 7:43pm

Just a quick question...going to see it tonight at a local theater...my friends and I have season tickets...and I was just wondering if the songs are the same in the musical as they are in the movie? or is it completely different? thanks!

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 7:44pm

I believe there are some different songs. I don't think Jitterbug is in the movie, but it is in the show. There might be some others. Of course, the theatre could opt not to do the stage show songs and just stick with the movie ones.

"This table, he is over one hundred years old. If I could, I would take an old gramophone needle and run it along the surface of the wood. To hear the music of the voices. All that was said." - Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 7:45pm

Most of the movie songs should be there, and a few that was cut off from the movie. One that I know is "The Jitterbug"

Enjoy the show.

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 7:52pm

It depends what the director cut from the version you are seeing, and which version of WoO is being done, but check amazon.com for MSG Wizard of Oz starring Eartha Kitt and Jessica Grové for a list of the songs.

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 8:28pm

I'm not sure if this is the version that was circulating around for licensing in the '80s, but I sure hope not.

In order to license the wonderful songs (from the 1939 movie), they came packaged together with a REALLY terrible book. Some of it was based on the movie, some fringe characters showed up that were only in the Oz books, and then they actually had three bad witches all riding around on vacuum cleaners. No, I'm not joking. It was the only way you could legitimately license the famous score for production.

The score included all the film songs, plus the "cut" song The Jitterbug.

Confidentially (because I'm not sure if anyone can legally do this), I played the Tin Man in a fairly large-scale production, and our director completely threw out the "official" book and we used 95% of the movie dialogue instead. It worked well (as if that were hard to guess)!

"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."

blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22

Updated On: 9/14/05 at 08:28 PM

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 8:46pm

There's no such thing as "confidentially" on a public message board.

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 9:00pm

Too true! But I figured it was million years ago, and I wasn't the one who threw out the book!

I would actually like to know the legality of doing something like that, though! If you license a show for production, can you change the book (and or edit songs, etc.)?

"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."

blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 9:06pm

I believe there's only so much that can be changed.

We did Les Mis and we added some things back in, plus made some musical interludes longer....

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 9:09pm

I saw a version where Dorothy sang "Evening Star" (thanks CATS) to the women of the Emerald City about life back in Kansas. It was really weird, I'd never heard of it before and I'm such a Wizard of Oz geek.

Not mention it was long and boring, and there were lots of children in the audience that were getting impatient. But I already hated the director for personal reasons, so I can say that it was a stupid decision to include it.

Like a firework unexploded
Wanting life but never knowing how

Updated On: 9/14/05 at 09:09 PM

#10

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 9:12pm

Tams-Witmark offers two different adaptations of the Arlen and Harberg WIZARD OF OZ. One is the Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation that stays truthful to the film while restoring all the additional musical material that Arlen and Harberg wrote for the film, but was eventually cut. This includes "The Jitterbug" the introductions sung by the crows and then the trees for "If I Only Had a Brain" and "If I Only Had a Heart" along with the reprises of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" for act two. This is the version that was used for the MSG tour, only it was cut to 90 minutes.

The second version they offer is the MUNY version. This is the one with the vacuum cleaners, odd characters, three witches and the rocket ship, believe it or not, for the act two finale. This version cuts "If I Were King of the Forest" and "Optimistic Voices", but includes a song called "Evening Star" that Dorothy sings about love and romance that basically takes the place of "If I Were King of Forest". To my knowledge "Evening Star" was not written by Harold Arlen or EY Harburg.

Most regional theatres will use the Royal Shakespeare Company version because it's closer to the film and is what audiences are accustomed to seeing. The MUNY version basically plays to bad reviews whenever it is staged and really should be taken off the list of available shows in my opinion. It's practically blasphemous.

#11

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 9:18pm

"The MUNY version basically plays to bad reviews whenever it is staged and really should be taken off the list of available shows in my opinion. It's practically blasphemous."

...Amen! The only reason our show worked at all was because we ditched the book. The Royal Shakespeare version wasn't available to us back then.

"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."

blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22

#12

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/14/05 at 9:56pm

does anyone know where i can get a copy of the MUNY script? if any of you have a copy of it i would pay you to make a copy and send it to me. im fascinated, i simply MUST read it!

#13

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/15/05 at 8:11am

I love The Wizard of Oz. Where did you see it? Is it a tour? Was it good?

SMiller

#14

re: Wizard Of Oz

Posted: 9/15/05 at 8:19am

There are two possible scripts that you can get rights for...both from Tams Whitmark .Both use the movie score,but the one with the movie script is the Royal Shakespeare Version.

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