The Broadway Classic ‘The Wiz’ Is Coming to Overture October 6-1: Bringing Black Joy Down the Road (Part 1 of 2)
Above: The Wiz EaseOnDown-Asher HaVon as Lion, Gabby Samone as Dorothy, Jaelen Spellman as Tinman & Jose E. Figueroa Jr. as Scarecrow - Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Below Associate Director Alan Mingo Jr
by Jonathan Gramling
Back in 1975, The Wiz broke ground on Broadway as a musical with an all Black cast staring Stephanie Mills as Dorothy. And then in 1978, the movie version of The Wiz staring Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow was released in theaters, again a groundbreaking film.
Alan Mingo Jr., the associate director of the production of The Wiz coming to Overture on October 6th has a long history with The Wiz.
“I was introduced to the movie as a kid,” Mingo said. “I always loved the movie. And I had no idea there was even a Broadway version even though my grandmother had the vinyl of the Broadway version. And I didn’t quite put it together as a kid. I knew that there was a vinyl and had seen the movie. But I didn’t put it together that there was any other product other than the movie. As a big fan of Diana Ross. Before The Wiz, there was Diana Ross in a Central Park performance. She sang in the rain and is iconic. I loved her. I loved Michael Jackson, so I was all in with The Wiz. Having people who look like me and sang like me, this is what made me go into the business.”
Mingo has starred in several Broadway plays including The Lion King as Simba, Sebastian in The Little Mermaid and the donkey in Shrek. But he has always been drawn to The Wiz. This is his third time around.
“Now before this reimagined version came through, 15 years ago, we tried to do it,” Mingo said. “I would say, seven years ago, we tried to do it again. And I’ve been in two other versions that were supposed to come to Broadway that failed miserably. So when I got cast in this 3-4 years ago in the pre-Broadway show, trying to go to Broadway, even when I signed the contract, people said, ‘Are you excited you are going to Broadway with The Wiz?’ I signed the contract, but I knew we weren’t going to Broadway. I had done this before. This would be my third time. We were doing the show and we had a couple of shows before we hit Broadway. I won’t believe this show is going to Broadway until I touch a Broadway stage. And then I touched the Broadway stage. And I was like, ‘Wow, we actually made it back to Broadway.’”
Mingo calls this version of The Wiz the reimagined version so that The Wiz wasn’t heavily anchored in 1970s culture.
“What made this version different than the others,” Mingo queried. “I think it is two-fold. One, I think we made the script timeless. While the other versions were trying to figure out how to take out the 70s slang and try to update the script, we really just came from the standpoint, ‘How do we allow this product to live to 2030, to 2050 without feeling like it is stuck in a time period? How do we make it timeless without bringing iPhones and iPads?’ And I think we did a great job in doing that. And the second thing we did was the music. We rewrote some of the music. We turned some solos into duets or trios or quartets. We changed the tempo. And so I think it kept the heart of the music with the variety and kept the heart of the music that everyone loved, but we made it deeper and richer to introduce it to a new audience. And I think those were the keys that make this reimagined version so successful.”
Mingo has stayed with The Wiz, in part, because he knows that the play impacts children and families in a different way than the Broadway productions of other animated films.
“Meeting people at the stage door, they would say, ‘My kids won’t go to bed unless I’m playing Lion King,’” Mingo said. “‘They won’t sit still and they listen to it all the time.’ ‘My kids love Shrek.’ ‘My little daughter, she’s just in love with Little Mermaid. We play that eight times a day.’ The difference with The Wiz is they have to tell you their experience. They’ll say things like, ‘My mother and aunt brought me to one of the stage versions that Stephanie Mills was in back in the 1980s.’ ‘I saw Stephanie Mills originally on Broadway and now I’m bringing my niece and nephew. ‘I’m bringing my son and daughter.’ And so the response was so different. And that just shocked me. I didn’t realize, one, that people told you their connection to this piece. Who introduced them and whom they are introducing. And for me, it was one of the reasons why once they pulled the Broadway show, they asked if I would like to do the tour. And I was like, ‘Absolutely.’ It meant so much to me that I wanted to be The Wiz for that new generation.”
And that is the secret sauce — besides incredible acting and dynamite music — the intergenerational impact of The Wiz.
“The reason why I went on tour was because I knew people were saying, ‘Hey, my aunt introduced me,’” Mingo said. “’Now I’m doing it for my daughter.’ I realized that connection, that conversation we were having at the stage door was unlike any of the musicals I had ever been in. And I have been in the biggest. So my thing is, ‘Oh, this clearly means something more.’ Someone would say, ‘Every Thanksgiving, my mom makes sure we watch it. And so I had to bring my daughter just because I knew my mother loved it.’ And their kids are loving it. It’s different. This is not a cartoon. It meant something. And on top of that, representation does something to some people that sometimes we would take for granted.”
One of the attractions, Mingo feels, is the sheer joyousness of The Wiz. It is so uplifting.
“A lot of African American stories for commercial theater talk about or go through Black pain,” Mingo said. “The Color Purple, Ragtime, you name it. It tends to go through Black pain, which is an important piece of theater. The great thing about The Wiz is it is about joy. It’s about happiness. We don’t stray off the story. I kind of say that the Wizard of Oz is probably one of America’s biggest folktales. I can’t find the right word for it. But it’s like one of the stories that Americans identify that when they see a talking lion, they understand what is happening. When they see a tin man, they got it. When they see someone in a plaid dress who’s name is Dorothy, they know what ride they are about to get on. And beyond The Wizard of Oz, have you seen how big Wicked has become?”
And The Wiz exposes children especially to powerful, empowering messages.
“You probably know the whole meaning of this,” Mingo reflected. “‘You actually have what you need inside of you all along.’ That story is told through different versions that spots up the Wizard of Oz. Specifically with The Wiz, one thing that people come out of it with is just joy. We’re not dealing with what it was like during those times. We’re just retelling a story with just African American faces. But what is really important in this is that with a lot of commercial theater, you don’t see the representation, any happy life. Again, the other pieces are very important. It’s not about retooling them. The difference with this piece is it’s about Black joy. And I will quote Steven Sondheim who says that The Wiz is the same musical because you just come out happy. You just come out singing the songs. And that’s one of the things that I am proud of about The Wiz.”
In their own ways, the audience gets caught up in the spirit and the joy of The Wiz.
“People sing along,” Mingo said. “I love watching two separate dynamics of audience members. You hear the old stereotype that Black people talk at movies, it’s not that bad in theater, but it gets there. When Evillene starts singing about bad news, it’s a huge gospel number. Our fans are used to going to that Baptist church where they get to put their hand in the air when someone is singing really well. And all of our singers glow. When you see the season subscriber and the church lady meet up at The Wiz, there is something magical about that experience and watching how they then respond by the end.”
Next issue: The life of an actor/assistant director
