RIALTO CHATTER: The 'Munchkin of the Night', Lloyd Webber Looks to 'OZ'

The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye reports that the 1939 MGM classic motion picture, The Wizard Of Oz, one of the most famous and iconic movies in the history of film, is getting a total makeover, including new songs and score, for a planned stage production that will hit London late next year.

The man behind the melodic musical rehaul is Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lloyd Webber and his associates have spent months seeking permission from those who control the rights to the film and to L. Frank Baum's original story to be allowed to add five or six new songs. These will be added to the classic E. Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen numbers that include Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Follow The Yellow Brick Road and If I Only Had A Brain reports Bamigboye.

Lloyd Webber explained to Baz in the Mail that when The Wizard Of Oz has been done on stage in the past "they attempt to do it exactly the same as the movie. That's completely wrong! You've got to think of it as a theatre piece, which just happens to have three or four of the greatest songs of all time." The composer has enlisted his 'LOVE NEVER DIES' partner Glenn Slater to write the lyrics for the new numbers. Slater pointed out that there are many 'obvious' slots in the Wizard Of Oz where new songs could fit.

'It doesn't have an opening number; it doesn't have a song for the witch,' the lyricist told me, adding that even the poor old wizard doesn't have a number of his own. 'It's missing what it needs to become an actual theatrical piece', explains the  man who'll be breathing new life and words into the classic property. To read the full article in the Dail Mail, click here.

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical-fantasy film mainly directed by Victor Fleming and based on the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The film stars Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, and Frank Morgan, with Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charley Grapewin, Clara Blandick, and the Singer Midgets as the Munchkins. The source material also features in current worldwide hit WICKED.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is The composer of The Likes of Us, Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, By Jeeves, Evita, Variations and Tell Me on a Sunday combined as Song & Dance, Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of The Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down The Wind, The Beautiful Game and The Woman in White. He composed The film scores of Gumshoe and The Odessa File, and Requiem, a setting of The Latin Requiem Mass, for which he won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Composition. He has also produced in The West End and on Broadway, not only his own work, but The Olivier Award-winning plays La Bête and Daisy Pulls It Off. In 2004 he produced The film version of The Phantom of The Opera. In 2006 he oversaw a new London production of Evita, Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular and pioneered television casting for musical Theater with The hit BBC series "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" which won an International Emmy. He followed this with The equally successful series "Any Dream Will Do." His awards include seven Tonys®, three Grammys, six Oliviers, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, an International Emmy, The Praemium Imperiale and The Richard Rodgers Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre. He was knighted in 1992 and created an honorary life peer in 1997. He's a 2006 Kennedy Center Honoree. He is currently working on the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, 'LOVE NEVER DIES', which is set for release later this year.

Photo Credit: Fernando Leon/Retna Ltd.