The weeks are flying by and it’s somehow mid-October?! In addition to my full plate at CWRU – which has been pretty pretty great this semester – I’m halfway through playing the three-week, 24-show Cleveland run of the pre-Broadway tour of The Wiz. I’m playing the Reed I book (alto, clarinet, flute, piccolo) in this new production and have been happily surprised by the reimagining of this show.
My little corner of the Emerald City.
Honestly, this show had slipped my mind since having played in the pit for my high school’s performance of it back in the late 1990s (the more common paratextual Wizard of Oz phenomenon in my life – for better or worse – probably being Zardoz lol). That small high school production was an…uneven reading of the show, to be generous, ha. Not so for this reimagining of the show’s numbers. The new book is hilarious and the music’s been updated a ton. In addition to fresh arrangements by the wonderful Joseph Joubert, it’s evident the sounds/moves of NOLA bounce and even bhangra (!?) have even made their way to the Emerald City. Pretty hype, ngl.
A view of Oz from the pit – the “No Sleep Club.” I’m there – literally and figuratively.
This production heads off to a few more cities before landing on Broadway in April, 2024, and I’m lucky to be a small part of it while it’s here.
AJ Kluth 