Hey everyone!
Welcome back to “We’re Off to See the Wizard” the blog series for Asheville Community Theatre’s production of The Wizard of Oz. We just finished our second week of rehearsals and it has been such a great time. We really just spent week one getting acclimated to the show and each other. We met everyone in this fabulous cast, and started getting introduced to some of the bigger musical numbers of the show that you know. The 4 friends came in early the first two Sundays to start blocking because our Scarecrow (Dillon Giles) and Tinman (Mark Jones) are involved with Haywood Area Regional Theatre’s (HART) production of Mama Mia, with Mark being the Director and Dillon being in the show.
Week 2 was our first introduction to “The Jitterbug.” If you’ve never seen the stage version of The Wizard of Oz,then this scene will be completely new to you. It is an upbeat number with lots of great dancing choreographed by Alexa Edelman, with Jacob Walas helping us learn it as the Dance Captain. Big movie buffs of the original 1939 version will know that the Jitterbug scene was filmed and in the original cut of the movie, but the studio felt that the movie would be too long (and the scene may be too scary for kids) with it included, so they took it out. It is one of the most expensive scenes to not make it in a movie, costing $80,000 in 1939 dollars! It is one of my favorite scenes in the show, and you’ll have to come see the show to see why!
This week also included lots of Munchkinland work. Alexa taught our youngest cast members a dance for the scene that happens in the vibrant land on the other side of the rainbow, and Jerry staged the scenes with the Munchkins and the first sightings of Glinda, the Witch of the North, and The Wicked Witch of the West. We also ran all the scenes that we have blocked up to this point and for only having two weeks of rehearsal, we are in a great spot!
This week I also got a chance to sit down with director, Jerry Crouch, to talk about his time as a director for Asheville Community Theatre as well as the show. Please watch the video where we talk about this wonderful “iconic fairy tale.”
The other two-thirds of our directing team are Music Director, Sarah Fowler and Choreographer, Alexa Edelman. I wanted to sit down with them this week to pick their brains about their particular areas of this show, but they were also involved with Mama Mia, Sarah being the music director and Alexa playing the role of Donna! I will hopefully get some time to sit down with them in the future and introduce them to you in later blogs!
Next week the blog will introduce you to the 4 friends of The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy, along with Hunk, Hickory, and Zeke… better known as the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion. Follow us as we start down the yellow brick road and really start developing our characters and how we create the magic you will see on stage in just over a month!
If you have any questions for the 4 of us, or anyone else with the show, comment on the blog, YouTube video, Facebook, or if you’re on Instagram or Twitter, send questions to me @theonejohno #AskTheWizard.