{"id":14038,"date":"2015-12-09T20:00:24","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T00:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=14038"},"modified":"2021-03-22T22:34:27","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T02:34:27","slug":"z-view-the-wiz-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=14038","title":{"rendered":"Z-View: &#8220;The Wiz Live&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2015\/z120915zview_thewizlive_poster.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"778\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>The Wiz Live<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 [2015]<br \/>\nDirector: <strong>Kenny Leon<\/strong><br \/>\nBased on the play <em><strong>The Wiz<\/strong><\/em> by <strong>William F. Brown<\/strong><br \/>\nStarring: <strong>Shanice Williams, Elijah Kelley, Ne-Yo<\/strong> and <strong>David Allan Grier<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Pitch: We need a new musical to do live on tv\u2026. Hey, let\u2019s do The Wiz!<\/p>\n<p>The Tagline: \u201cEase on down the road to Oz!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Overview<\/strong>:\u00a0 Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Everyone knows the story of <em><strong>The Wizard of Oz<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 This is an adaptation of that story.\u00a0 Actually, this version is an adaptation of an adaptation of <em><strong>The Wizard of \u00a0Oz<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>The Wiz<\/strong><\/em> first appeared as a <strong>Broadway<\/strong> play in<strong> 1975<\/strong>.\u00a0 Then in<strong> 1978,<\/strong> <em><strong>The Wiz<\/strong><\/em> turned up in theaters as a movie starring <strong>Diana Ross<\/strong> and <strong>Michael Jackson<\/strong> directed by <strong>Sidney Lumet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This version was broadcast live with <strong>Shanice Williams<\/strong> as <strong>Dorothy, Elijah Kelley<\/strong> as the <strong>Scarecrow, Ne-Yo<\/strong> as the <strong>Tin Man<\/strong> and <strong>David Allan Grier<\/strong> as the <strong>Cowardly Lion<\/strong>.\u00a0 <strong>Queen Latifah<\/strong> plays the <strong>Wizard<\/strong> and there are appearances by <strong>Common, Mary J. Blige<\/strong> and <strong>Stephanie Mills<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I enjoyed <em><strong>The Wiz<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 The cast was excellent and special mention to <strong>David Allan Grier<\/strong> as the <strong>Cowardly Lion<\/strong> and <strong>Elijah Kelley<\/strong> as the <strong>Tin Man<\/strong> for their performances.\u00a0 Stand out scenes include <strong>Dorothy<\/strong> meeting the<strong> Scarecrow<\/strong> [loved the crows], when our group on the way to <strong>Oz<\/strong> come across the poppies,\u00a0and the <strong>Lion<\/strong> singing <em><strong>\u201cI\u2019m a Mean ole Lion.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If I were to pick nits:\u00a0 I wish the show had been presented before a live audience. \u00a0I think it would have enhanced the viewing experience.\u00a0 I was a bit let down by the tornado sequence, the creatures sent by the <strong>Wicked Witch<\/strong> to collect <strong>Dorothy<\/strong> and some of story shortcuts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Overall, I really enjoyed <em><strong>The Wiz Live<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 It was a fine way to spend a couple of hours in <strong>Oz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2015\/z120915zview_thewizlive_cast.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Rating: 4 of 5 stars.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wiz Live\u00a0 [2015] Director: Kenny Leon Based on the play The Wiz by William F. Brown Starring: Shanice Williams,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,54,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-movies","category-tv","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14038"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26934,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14038\/revisions\/26934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}