Stage
The Wiz
The Wiz is a 1975 Broadway musical, an adaptation by Ken Harper of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, exclusively featuring African American actors. The play features music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls, and starred Stephanie Mills, Hinton Battle, Tiger Haynes, Ted Ross, Dee Dee Bridgewater, André DeShields, Tasha Thomas and Mabel King. The Broadway version opened on January 5, 1975 and ended on January 28, 1979, and ran for 1,672 performances. A motion picture adaptation of The Wiz was produced in 1978 (see 1978 in film) by Motown Productions and Universal Pictures, starring Diana Ross (no relation to Ted), Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Lena Horne, Richard Pryor, and Mabel King.
