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Modernity is the chat on everyone's lips.
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SNS and Kid The Wiz Release Viral Dance Track, 'Love Come Down' | love come down kid the wizIt's a active day at Grumman Studios, which will host the accessible NBC agreeable The Wiz Live!, based on the 1975 Broadway agreeable of the aforementioned name with a abundantly atramentous casting (which was additionally acclimatized to a acclaimed 1978 film). Based on the Wizard of Oz, it tells the adventure of a babe called Dorothy who acreage in a abstruse world, accruing an all-embracing accumulation of accompany on her adventure aback home.
Everyone complex in the NBC assembly is on duke at Grumman, from administrator Kenny Leon, to controlling producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, to newcomer Shanice Williams, who will blooper on Dorothy's argent shoes. And they're all absurdly acknowledgment how this new adjustment will be electrifyingly original.
"It’s aggregate that you apperceive and adulation about The Wiz, alone kicked up to now ... from the choreography, to the technology, to alike the lingo," Ne-Yo, who plays the Tin Man, tells Mashable. "But not in a way that takes abroad from what was. We didn’t accomplish it so avant-garde that you don’t admit it."
The alive achievement will be advertisement on NBC at 8 p.m. ET on Dec. 3.
That addition includes giving Addaperle (played by Amber Riley) an iPad, abating the '70s era soundtrack and accumulation Cirque du Soleil, as able-bodied as newer ball moves.
"We are affecting aloft every artery dance," Fatima Robinson, choreographer, says during a panel. "We're hitting the quan, we're hitting the Nae Nae."
There's additionally a new song, “We Got It,” co-written by Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley, Harvey Mason Jr. and Stephen Oremus, which will be articulate by Dorothy, the Tin Man, Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion.
Another big, avant-garde change? Making Dorothy beneath of a "victim" and giving her some agency, says biographer and Tony Award champ Harvey Fierstein.
"Why should she be aloof a victim? It’s her dream! It’s her fantasy!" he says during a roundtable interview.
In this version, Dorothy is a adolescent babe who hates school, her classmates and Kansas, acquirements how to ascendancy her own destiny. The adventure opens with her "running abroad from home aggravating to get Omaha, area she was absolutely born," Fierstein says.
"She’s strong," he adds. "She’s still a babe in a awe-inspiring world, but she’s not aloof a victim of this world. She learns to accomplish choices."
Fierstein additionally gave added backstory to acknowledging characters, like the Tin Man and Evillene, the abandoned witch played by Mary J. Blige. Then, there was the altered claiming of afterlight the backstory for the Wiz, originally accounting for a man, because of a casting change fabricated by Leon.
"I bethink aboriginal on the question, 'Well ... who do you anticipate for the Wiz? And I aloof said 'Queen Latifah,'" he says in a console interview. "First affair out of my mouth. I wasn't cerebration about gender."
"And, of course, their admirable account are my problems," Fierstein jokes.
If all goes according to plan, the appearance will acquaint a agleam new adjustment of The Wiz to millions of viewers. But first, let's accommodated some of the characters audiences will see forth the chicken brick road.
Shanice Williams was accepting agitation award her way. The New Jersey built-in auditioned for the role of Dorothy the day afterwards she absitively to leave the American Agreeable and Dramatic Academy in Los Angeles.
"If I go to this audience I’ll at atomic apperceive what a huge audience is like," she remembers cerebration of the massive accessible casting alarm for the Wiz, she says. "I’ll get that off my plate."
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Kid The Wiz - Love Come Down - YouTube | love come down kid the wizActually landing the role of Dorothy was "impossible," she thought. But aloof a few months afterwards and actuality we are. The aerated 19-year-old with the big articulation anon bent the absorption of Leon.
"Kenny instantly articular her, and we got a argument adage 'I anticipate I begin our Dorothy,'" Meron recalls.
This action has been "magical," she says, abnormally because it's her aboriginal above activity anytime — and she happens to be the star. Of course, that comes with a appropriate set of concerns, back millions of bodies will potentially watch this alive advertisement (9.1 actor bodies watched aftermost year's Peter Pan). Williams is in about every scene, save for one, so she consistently has to be on point.
"The best pressure’s on me," she says. "I’m a girl, cipher knows who I am. I accept to be on my A bold ... Kenny consistently says 'you accept to assignment harder than everybody else.'"
One of the allegorical lights for her is Stephanie Mills, who played Dorothy in the aboriginal Broadway production. She'll comedy Aunt Em in this adaptation. The brace already accept a appropriate bond, arrant the aboriginal time they sang "Home" together.
"We had to do a few takes, because it was some waterworks," Williams says.
In fact, if addition assembly of the Wiz rolls about in 20 years, Williams says she'd adulation to booty on the role of Aunt Em.
"I don’t apperceive what it is, I aloof feel like back she’s with me, anything’s possible," Williams says.
For her part, Mills says she "could airing about arrant all day." The aftermost time she played Dorothy was in a 1992 revival, and that was absolutely the aftermost time she anticipation she'd comedy the role. She loves the avant-garde iteration, mainly Cirque du Soleil and the actuality that Williams is a "younger, hipper" adjustment of the iconic character.
Since she's the alone aboriginal Wiz casting member, she consistently gets asked questions by the adolescent cast. But she doesn't mind.
"It’s cool," she grins. "I’m the old dame here."
(L-R) David Alan Grier as Lion, Shanice Williams as Dorothy, Elijah Kelley as Scarecrow, Ne-Yo as Tinman.
Image: Paul Gilmore/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Ne-Yo (the Tin Man), Elijah Kelley (the Scarecrow) and David Allan Grier (the Lion) are a articulate bunch. Ask them one catechism and the acknowledgment flies at you from all angles, arranged with jokes and antic biting that shows what a tight-knit leash they've become.
"Learning from David is incredible," Kelley says in a roundtable interview. "I’m activity to say the BS being back you’re continuing appropriate actuality ... he’s been in this bold for so long-"
"So long," Ne-Yo interjects.
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Kid The Wiz - Love Come Down (ScrewDown) uploaded by DJ QRack ... | love come down kid the wiz"So, sooo long," Kelley adds.
You get the picture. But amid all the ribbing, there's additionally a cilia of absorption they all project, authentic action for this altered journey.
"I started packing my clothes like a ages in advance," Grier jokes. "It's a kid-like activity I accept for this project."
Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley and David Alan Grier.
Image: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
When it comes to theater, decidedly this amalgam of alive achievement on television, Grammy-nominated accompanist Ne-Yo has abstruse a lot about acting acknowledgment to advice from co-stars and administrator Leon.
"He'll go 'How old is your character…what does your appearance like to eat?’" he says. "He helps you actualize this added person."
All three bethink the aboriginal time they put on their alarming Wiz costumes, which accommodate layers of actual and abundant face makeup. But afterwards all the rehearsal, as able-bodied as things like photo shoots and promotional clips, it feels natural.
"It's additionally subversively a day of alarm because we’re acclimated and comfortable," Grier says. "By the time Dec. 3 rolls around, we’ll be ready."
Amber Riley as Addapearle, Uzo Aduba as Glinda, Mary J. Blige as Evillene.
Amber Riley has addicted memories of the Wiz growing up. She remembers aggravating to actor the "Ease On Down the Road" dance, performed aboriginal in the blur by Diana Ross (Dorothy) and Michael Jackson (the Scarecrow). She's watched it "countless" times since, and knew she had to be a allotment of the NBC adaptation.
"I was like ’How do I get in the room? Who do I charge to allocution to?’" she recalls during a roundtable interview. "I absolutely capital to be a allotment of article that’s so iconic."
She'll comedy the role of Addaperle, the Acceptable Witch of the North, alongside Emmy champ Uzo Aduba as Glinda, the Acceptable Witch of the South, and Mary J. Blige as Evillene, the Abandoned Witch of the West.
Blige, for her part, says the cine adjustment of the Wiz afflicted her activity as a kid. Seeing Ross and Jackson ("the untouchables," she calls them) afflicted her angle on art.
"It aloof gave me hope," she says in a abstracted roundtable interview. "It aggressive me, it encouraged me, it told me I had in me what I bare already to accomplish it in the world."
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Love Come Down - YouTube | love come down kid the wizThough Riley has had affluence of alive TV and music experience, acceptable Dancing with the Stars in 2013 and starring on the hit alternation Glee, this assembly has altered challenges. Practicing on a affected stage, but again accepting to focus on cameras is a arrant experience, a acclimation act to ally both mediums.
Blige, a Grammy acceptable artisan with a few acting roles beneath her belt, loves that it gives her a adventitious to be blowzy and apprentice a new craft.
"I get a adventitious to be bad in advanced of everybody ... if I blend up, it helps me to body up my beef to be able and fix my mistake," she says.
Physically speaking, she'll accept to be able to cull off her crazily abundant costume, which includes a acme (that she hopes doesn't "go aerial off" during the show) and a clothes that she guesses is about 15 or 20 pounds.
But back she puts on the costume, she feels tougher, bossier, added in tune with the angry witch she's portraying. She jokes that she now affectionate of relates to Evillene afterwards all this time, decidedly the bulletin abaft "No Bad News."
Ultimately, Riley can't delay for the abounding amphitheater moment she'll get to complete by assuming in this adaptation.
"It was so appropriate to my mom and it was appropriate to me," she says. "Now my niece is activity to get to watch it and it’s activity to be appropriate to her seeing her aunt in it."
Similarly, Blige can't delay for adolescent audiences to barbecue their eyes on this adventure for the aboriginal time, to be aggressive aloof like she was all those years ago.
"To be a allotment of article that can do the aforementioned affair for a altered bearing ... I couldn’t ask for added in my activity or career appropriate now."
Queen Latifah as the Wiz.
The aboriginal Wiz ability be the acumen Queen Latifah is who she is today — a Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated artist. Here's the aboriginal time she saw it, in her own words during a roundtable interview.
"It was the aboriginal Broadway comedy I anytime saw," she says. "My mom took me there as a kid — I don’t apperceive how she hustled up those tickets, because I knew money was bound — but she managed to get some tickets and took us to see it. It was the aboriginal comedy I anytime saw and I was absolute away. I was afraid by it. It opened my apperception up ... I was seeing a adventure that I was accustomed with, but told through the lens of bodies who looked like me, African American people, with some body to it. It acquainted added relatable ... Oz wasn’t aloof a fantasy land, it was a abode that I could go."
Executive producers Zadan and Meron, who accept formed with Latifah on Chicago, Hairspray and Steel Magnolias, knew they capital her for the activity (they semi-seriously antic that she's the aboriginal alarm they accomplish on every project). But they had no abstraction about the appropriate acceptation the agreeable captivated for her. It was kismet.
Playing the Wiz, decidedly accepting to don the anxiously crafted blooming costume, has already had a amazing aftereffect on Latifah's psyche.
"My aspect changes, my attitude changes," she says. "My amateur get bigger and I alpha activity a little bossier than I ability accept been. I aloof appetite to acquaint somebody to do something."
For her, assuming in this adjustment is about like confined a greater ambition again aloof putting on a acceptable show.
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KidTheWiz | Kid The Wiz | Free Listening on SoundCloud | love come down kid the wiz"We’re all actuality for one purpose, which is to accomplish the Wiz great," she says. "I anticipate the apple needs this appropriate now."
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