The Wiz Live!
Last night was the now annual NBC Live musical event. As you most likely already know, this year that live musical was "The Wiz".
"The Wiz" is a modern retelling of the classic L. Frank Baum novel, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". If I need to explain what this show is any further, just google it, you uncultured swine. Believe it or not,I wasn't familiar with "The Wiz" before watching this. All I knew was it was an adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" and that the movie version starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson was not very well received. So really, I didn't know what to expect and I wasn't disappointed.
I think out of the three live musicals NBC has done, this one had the strongest cast. In past years, the live musicals had some weak links, such as Carrie Underwood (The Sound of Music) and Christopher Walken (Peter Pan). But this year, I didn't have very many issues with anyone. Everyone who was cast fit their roles and everyone did an great job.
Rising star, Shanice Williams, did a beautiful job as Dorothy Gale. She gave a very emotional and seasoned performance. Her voice...HER VOICE. This girl has some PIPES. She is just star in every single way. She was having a lot of fun and you could really tell. She nailed it!
Dorothy's three friends, The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion were played by Elijah Kelly, Ne-Yo, and David Alan Grier. They all did really great. Kelly was a perfect fit for the Scarecrow. I haven't seen "The Wiz" ever, but I still thought that he was very Michael Jackson-y. Ne-Yo was good as the Tin Man. I thought he had some diction problems, but other than that I had no issues with him. David Alan Grier was awesome. I think that out of the most of the Cowardly Lions that I have seen, he was the most close to the Bert Lahr from the 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz". All three of them did really great!
I adored Queen Latifah as the Wiz. I thought she was really funny, especially when they revealed The Wiz's true form at the end I am not going to spoil how the reveal goes, but just know that it is really funny and clever.
True standouts in the show were Stephanie Mills (Auntie Em, Dorothy in the original Broadway cast of "The Wiz") and Uzo Aduba (Glinda). Both of them just have such gorgeous voices and I want them to sing to me forever. Mary J. Blige (Evilene, The Wicked Witch of the West) and Amber Riley (Addaperle, the Good Witch of the North) did great as well. It's hard for me to elaborate on all of the people I mentioned in this paragraph because they just didn't do enough in this show.
Shout out to Tamika Lawrence (If/Then, Matilda the Musical) and Asmeret Gabremichael (Legally Blonde, Book of Mormon) in the ensemble!
Onto the show itself. It's not the best show ever. I do not think the score is all there, but I still enjoyed myself and the music made me want to dance because it is so energetic, most specifically the song "Brand New Day". The only issue I have with the book of the show is that some parts of the show were really rushed. For example, I think that the scenes in Evilene's castle was too short, it didn't give the audience time to really absorb what was happening.
I really liked how the show was just performed on one "stage" for the whole show. What I mean is, they didn't try to do crazy movie-ish sets like they did the past few years. But, I thought the "stage" felt a bit empty. The backdrops were projections, if I were in a theatre watching the show, I probably would have said "Ugh, projections", but I honestly didn't mind the projections on my television. However, the projections were great, the costumes were great eye candy (except the Munchkins, they looked like giant chess pieces), and the set pieces were fun.
I thought the camera angles were all over the place. There were some scenes where the camera angles would change every few seconds. A big issue I had is that there should have been more wide shots, I had a hard time trying to appreciate the projections and sometimes the choreography, because there weren't enough wide shots.
Overall, "The Wiz Live" was a very well put together production and I enjoyed it very much,. It put me in a very good mood. So, the standards have now been set for "Grease Live!" on FOX and they have some work to do. 4 stars from me!
"The Wiz" is a modern retelling of the classic L. Frank Baum novel, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". If I need to explain what this show is any further, just google it, you uncultured swine. Believe it or not,I wasn't familiar with "The Wiz" before watching this. All I knew was it was an adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" and that the movie version starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson was not very well received. So really, I didn't know what to expect and I wasn't disappointed.
I think out of the three live musicals NBC has done, this one had the strongest cast. In past years, the live musicals had some weak links, such as Carrie Underwood (The Sound of Music) and Christopher Walken (Peter Pan). But this year, I didn't have very many issues with anyone. Everyone who was cast fit their roles and everyone did an great job.
Rising star, Shanice Williams, did a beautiful job as Dorothy Gale. She gave a very emotional and seasoned performance. Her voice...HER VOICE. This girl has some PIPES. She is just star in every single way. She was having a lot of fun and you could really tell. She nailed it!
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| Shanice Williams as Dorothy. |
I adored Queen Latifah as the Wiz. I thought she was really funny, especially when they revealed The Wiz's true form at the end I am not going to spoil how the reveal goes, but just know that it is really funny and clever.
True standouts in the show were Stephanie Mills (Auntie Em, Dorothy in the original Broadway cast of "The Wiz") and Uzo Aduba (Glinda). Both of them just have such gorgeous voices and I want them to sing to me forever. Mary J. Blige (Evilene, The Wicked Witch of the West) and Amber Riley (Addaperle, the Good Witch of the North) did great as well. It's hard for me to elaborate on all of the people I mentioned in this paragraph because they just didn't do enough in this show.
Shout out to Tamika Lawrence (If/Then, Matilda the Musical) and Asmeret Gabremichael (Legally Blonde, Book of Mormon) in the ensemble!
Onto the show itself. It's not the best show ever. I do not think the score is all there, but I still enjoyed myself and the music made me want to dance because it is so energetic, most specifically the song "Brand New Day". The only issue I have with the book of the show is that some parts of the show were really rushed. For example, I think that the scenes in Evilene's castle was too short, it didn't give the audience time to really absorb what was happening.
I really liked how the show was just performed on one "stage" for the whole show. What I mean is, they didn't try to do crazy movie-ish sets like they did the past few years. But, I thought the "stage" felt a bit empty. The backdrops were projections, if I were in a theatre watching the show, I probably would have said "Ugh, projections", but I honestly didn't mind the projections on my television. However, the projections were great, the costumes were great eye candy (except the Munchkins, they looked like giant chess pieces), and the set pieces were fun.
I thought the camera angles were all over the place. There were some scenes where the camera angles would change every few seconds. A big issue I had is that there should have been more wide shots, I had a hard time trying to appreciate the projections and sometimes the choreography, because there weren't enough wide shots.
Overall, "The Wiz Live" was a very well put together production and I enjoyed it very much,. It put me in a very good mood. So, the standards have now been set for "Grease Live!" on FOX and they have some work to do. 4 stars from me!
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