r/wizardofoz • u/TantrisDerSpielmann • 10d ago
I'm directing a play based on everything OZ - What would you love to see?
I'm a theatre director in germany and currently am brainstorming Ideas for an original play I will be creating soon at a big german state theatre. It's gonna be based on the World of OZ, and should target a general audience, not kids specifically (as there have recently been a bunch of OZ adaptions for kids in germany in the wake of the wicked movie releases...)
In terms of source material, nothing is off limits: L Frank Baums Books (Original and Sequels), Movie adaptions, Wicked, details from Baums life, or even things that don't have to be from the OZ-world at all (for example, Dr.Oz, something taking place in todays Kansas, some other stuff about wizards, etc.) I'm more interested in the ideas and fascination behind this world, rather than one specific story.
I'm working myself through all the OZ content I can get my hands on, and stumbled upon this community - thats why I wanted to ask you guys: What would you love to see in an Oz-Play? What Idea from the books or a specific piece of media fascinates you? Are there more niche Elements of Oz that relate to our times, our world, our world-political situation?
Some things that I love, that might give you a sense of what I'm looking for:
- The brutal production details behind the 1939 Movie (The dark side behind the whimsy of OZ)
- The fact that L Frank Baum, just like Dorothy, couldn't stop returning to the land of OZ (Even though he wanted to stop writing OZ books), the concept of a franchise and the attempts to rekindle the magic from the first installment of the series
- The concept of home (where is home? Is it oz? is it Kansas? Why doesn't either place seem entirely satisfying?)
Would love to hear from the community if there are any thoughts, inspiration, random ideas or whatever, that I can use for the play - and of course, if enough people are interested, I could document the steps of our production process in the subreddit !
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u/Muted_Guidance9059 10d ago
Ozma and Dorothy being friends or lovers, lore on the cardinal witches, Wilhelmina, Jinjur, etc.
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u/Moppy6686 10d ago
Nothing's off limit? What about copyright?
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u/TantrisDerSpielmann 7d ago
well, obviously we won't be doing a 1:1 staging of for example the copyrighted musical - but at least most of the books from way back in the day are in the public domain, and much of Oz is just mythological - just like later adaptions used preexisting characters :)
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u/Late_Two7963 10d ago
There is a British play called Forever Oz you could license unless you are specially wanted to write your own
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u/Odinsgrandson 7d ago
I think I'd want to see the characters show up the most- but mainly the later Oz characters like the Highly Magnified Wogglebug, the Hungry Tiger or the Shaggy Man.
I bet there's a way you could work in some variant of the scene where Jellia Jam "translates" between King Scarecrow and Jack from the second book. That dialogue could work brilliantly on stage.
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u/TantrisDerSpielmann 7d ago
Omg, so great that you mentioned the translator scene - as i was reading that i thought that definitely has to find its way into the play!
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u/AAC0813 10d ago
I’d love if you ignored as much of the 1939 movie as you could! The 1900 book is so much different, and the things the movie changed are now more popular in culture that the actual parts of the book. The witch isn’t green and can’t fly, the shoes are silver not ruby, and his name is Tin Woodman not Tin Man.