High School Musical Wizard of Oz

I was privileged to see the O'Fallon, Illinois, High School musical of Wizard of Oz last night!  Let's go ahead and get the negatives out of the way so we can move on with the good parts!  The whole program ended up being about 4 hours long, but since it was their first night I am sure they'll find a way to reduce the breaks in between scenes so they won't be as long for the rest of the weekend. (hopefully)  A couple of the head mics were cutting out, but that was minimal for the amount of movement on the stage.  My only other negative is something I have yet to find different at any high school play; the band was not at its best.  Of course, when you consider all the line-ups the band has to practice for throughout the length of a school year, some off rythms, sharps, flats, and squeaks are to be expected. 

Beyond that, the musical was brilliantly done!  The girl who played Dorothy had an amazingly smooth vibrato and her accent fir the part perfectly.  Tin Man, Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion fit their parts like gloves, and I wouldn't be shocked to see the girl who played the Wicked Witch of the West have a cameo in a future Broadway Musical showing of Wicked.   The cast and crew did a really cool color scheme with Muchkin Land and the Jitterbug scene, with the brightest of colors, blacklight, and some really creative costumes, and the choreographed dance routines included a stage full of cast, and was almost seamless. 

The Wizard of Oz was fully set up with a giant screen on the stage that actually worked!  The guy that played the wizard had a closeup video playing of just his face, and the sound effects, which sounded a bit like a tin can, worked well for creating the mood they were trying to convey.  They even had lightening flashing around him as he spoke. 

If there was one scene I would have liked to see more artistic talent put into, it would have been the hot air balloon ride when the wizard is trying to take Dorothy back to Kansas by air.  They positioned the cast to where the wizard was almost off stage so they could just lift him up as a group to make it look like he was lifting off into the air.  While it worked, the scene would have been amazing with the basket of a hot air balloon attached to some cables that would hoist it up into the ceiling.  I would not have been able to resist dropping my jaw for that one.

I have to give props to all the musical talent that exists in the O'Fallon school.  This musical was top notch in vocals, even when cast members were singing while dancing or using stairs, they all have a lot to be proud of.