A Female Wizard? THE WIZ Director Kenny Leon Came Up with Casting Queen Latifah for the Title Role

Grammy and Golden Globe-winner Queen Latifah will soon return to musical theatre as the title character in NBC's highly-anticipated THE WIZ LIVE! (airing December 3)- a part that is usually played by a man. In a recent Variety article, it is revealed that director Kenny Leon first came up the idea for the gender-bending casting.

Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who first cast her in their Oscar winning big screen adaptation of Chicago, said of the star: "We realized then that she could do everything. She was a first-rate actress, singer and dancer. She has a star quality that lights up the screen."

Queen Latifah stars as the Wiz, the mysterious and powerful wizard who holds the keys to the Emerald City, but whose metamorphosis from ordinary to extraordinary is itself a hoax. She rose to her lofty position after being transported by accident to Oz in a hot air balloon during a snowstorm.

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"The Wiz Live!" is adapted from "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum, with a book by William F. Brown, and music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls. The Wiz Live! will also star Shanice Williams as Dorothy, Mary J. Blige as Evillene, Uzo Aduba as Glinda the Good Witch, Amber Riley as Addaperle, David Alan Grier as the Cowardly Lion, Elijah Kelley as the Scarecrow, and Ne-Yo as the Tin Man.

Craig Zadan and Neil Meron ("The Sound of Music Live!," "Peter Pan Live!") serve as executive producers. Tony winner Kenny Leon will direct with Harvey Fierstein providing new written material. Fatima Robinson serves as choreographer. "The Wiz Live!" is produced by Universal Television in association with Cirque Du Soleil Theatrical.

"The Wiz" tells the classic story hundreds of millions of people have read in the L. Frank Baum books and then saw in the much-beloved 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz," but retold in an African-American/multicultural context. Dorothy, a young woman from Kansas, is swept up in a tornado and relocated to a fantasy world that is inhabited by munchkins, good and bad witches, and, of course, flying monkeys. She eventually takes a path down a yellow brick road to find a wizard who can help her go home and along the way meets a scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion, who all learn to help one another.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos