The Wiz is Set For Revival – May I Propose a White Lead? – IOTW Report

The Wiz is Set For Revival – May I Propose a White Lead?

Tuesday, 15 August 2023, 8:45 BFH Uncategorized 25

Deadline-

A newcomer will be easing on down the road next year.

Nichelle Lewis has been cast in the lead role of Dorothy in the Broadway revival of The Wiz, which is slated to hit the boards in the spring. Discovered via a TikTok video and beating out more than 2,000 other hopefuls, she also will play the iconic role in the show’s national tour.

Singer-songwriter Lewis is a Virginia native who has performed in the national tour of Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors, Bare: A Pop Opera and most recently the new musical Labelless. She took first place in the young adult popular vote at the 2021 Music International Grand Prix. See clips of her performances below.

The show premiered on Broadway in 1975 and won seven Tony Awards including Best Musical, with Stephanie Mills as Dorothy. She reprised the role for a brief 1984 Broadway revival, and Diana Ross took over as the wayward Kansan for the 1978 film adaptation, which also starred Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow, Lena Horne as Glinda and Richard Pryor as the Wiz.

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25 Comments on The Wiz is Set For Revival – May I Propose a White Lead?

  2. The Wiz was part of the beginning of race swapping in classic stories.
    Back when it first came out it was a flop.
    Who’d have thunk we’d be where we are now?

    13

  8. MissInMi AT 9:43 AM
    “Still, they refuse to remake and race swap Tarzan.. Cowards.”

    …they might make Jane Black, but after failing yo civilize him she just leaves, because “Don’t no Strong, Independent Woman™ need any Honkey Mam”, or some such…

    7

  12. …in the original movie they used the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center as a stand-in for Oz.

    …gonna be hard to do that this time since it was diversitied out of existence…

    2

  15. …you know who would be the PERFECT Wizard?

    Pedo Joe.

    …wait, hear me out…

    The Wizard is a demented old White man with NO skills of his own, a fraud who has no business doing what he’s doing and only maintains power through fear, guards, and by the entire town going along with his lies without question. He has NO idea how he even GOT the job, he just kind of literally fell into an arrangement made by others that served the purposes of others, and they immediately hid him behind an intimidating façade and severely limited his visitors. Even once exposed it was not made general knowledge to Oz about the fiction that had been perpetrated on them, and he was able to buy off those that actually exposed him with worthless gifts and trinkets that did absolutely NOTHING for them except make them feelz gud about themselves. And at the end he leaves the most literally brainless of them in charge as he drifts away into obscurity, never to answer for or even acknowledge the massive scam he had pulled on Oz for years beyond count.

    And also Dorothy is a young girl so he can sniff her.

    He’s only stopped from raping her by the fact that Toto sensed his evil and led her from the balloon.

    …and before you say “But it’s a Black show about Black people with an all Black cast and an all Black crew, and The Pedophile is White”, may I remind you of the one immutable law that emerged from the wreakage of the stolen 2020 election, which is simply that “If You Don’t Vote For Joe, You Ain’t Black”.

    …you have NO choice. Pedo Joe IS your Wizard. Indictments will be returned for anyone who questions that.

    One caviet, though.

    This means Dorothy HAS to be White.

    …Because unrepentant racist Pedo Joe don’t sniff Black people…

    5

  16. I’m writing an original screenplay about Malcom X. I have plans for Mathew McConaughey to play the lead. Martin Luther King will be played by Joe Pesci. Jesse Jackson will be changed to a lesbian, played by Meryl Streep. I think it is going to be a big, big hit.

    7

  20. Hmm…a few years ago they did a live production of “The Wiz” on television. I had a chip on my shoulder about it, but should not have. Not everyone in the cast was black. Keep in mind that the movie version of “The Wizard of Oz” is based on the books by L. Frank Baum, but not that much. Rather like the Hobbit films.

    That, and there are areas of the country that had a predominance of black farmers at one time.

    I thought the TV version of “The Wiz” was going to be an ethnic thing, but it really wasn’t. I actually enjoyed it. Normally I detest recasting shows for racial reasons, but this one doesn’t really fit that.

    1

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