Encores! Brings THE WIZ 'Down the Road' to City Center June 2009

The New York Times is reporting that THE WIZ will "Ease on Down the Road" to the New York City Center as it has announced that it would stage a revival of "The Wiz" as its Encores! Summer Stars production.

The original musical, a modern-day retelling of L. Frank Baum's "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" with an African-American cast, featured a book by William F. Brown, music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls and orchestrations by Harold Wheeler, won seven Tony Awards, including best musical in 1975.

The Encores! revival, reports the Times will be directed by Thomas Kail and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler (who collaborated on "In the Heights"), and is scheduled to run June 12 through July 3. No casting has been announced.

Encores! Summer Stars, an expanded version of City Center's acclaimed Encores! series, is dedicated to presenting more fully-realized productions of classic works of the American musical theater, and to giving leading actors the chance to play roles they were born to play. Its first production, the critically acclaimed Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, recently had a successful run on Broadway.

New York City Center Encores! (Jack Viertel, Artistic Director; Rob Berman, Music Director) has, since 1994, celebrated the rarely-heard works of America's most important composers and lyricists. Conceived as "concert versions," each Encores! season gives three scores the chance to be heard as originally intended by their creators. Over the years, Encores! has presented the works of the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Bock and Harnick, Burt Bacharach, Kander and Ebb, Comden and Green, and many more. The program is the recipient of a special 2000 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award and Jujamcyn Theaters Award.