VIDEOS: Broadway's Road To THE WIZ; Five Early-70s Musicals About Black Urban Life

Broadway fans around the country will be glued to their TV sets tomorrow night, December 3rd as NBC airs THE WIZ LIVE! at 8/7c.

With a book by William F. Brown and a score by Charlie Smalls that retold L. Frank Baum's classic THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ with words and music that reflected 1975's urban multiculturalism, THE WIZ captivated audiences with its combination of storybook fantasy and contemporary soul and funk.

But THE WIZ didn't just pop out of nowhere. It was part of a growing trend of the 1970s when urban black stories and music were making their way to Broadway. Here's a quick video recap of five Broadway musicals that helped diversify Broadway in the early years of that decade.

Confrontational independent filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles was a hot name in 1971 after the release of his sexually charged SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG, so there was a lot of interest on Broadway when in October of that year a new musical, AIN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE A NATURAL DEATH, subtitled Tunes In Blackness, bore his name as author of the book and score.

The plotless show introduced audiences of an assortment of everyday people populating a declining black urban neighborhood, all with socially and politically charged stories of their plight at the hands of "The Man." The cast included pre-Saturday Night Live Garrett Morris and the show ran for 580 performances, earning seven Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical.

Eve Merriam's book of nursery rhymes, INNER CITY MOTHER GOOSE, was banned throughout the country for its sardonic look at urban violence, poverty and corruption. Director Tom O'Horgan, who mounted the Broadway premieres of HAIR and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, had the idea to bring her book to the stage. With lyrics by Merriam and music by pop songwriter Helen Miller, INNER CITY opened in November of 1971 as another plotless revue of urban life and though it only ran for 97 performances, Linda Hopkins was awarded a Best Featured Actress Tony. Here she is in concert, with her big solo "Deep In The Night."

DON'T BOTHER ME, I CAN'T COPE, with a score by Micki Grant, was a third musical revue about urban life, and while it also dealt with issues of poverty and racism, the material, and director Vinnette Carroll's production, was lighter in tone. The show made Carroll the first African-American woman to direct on Broadway and ran for a whopping 1,065 performances.

Only seven months after the opening of AIN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE A NATURAL DEATH, Melvin Van Peebles came back to Broadway as producer, director and author of DON'T PLAY US CHEAP!, a fantasy musical about a pair of devils who take human form and try to break up a Harlem house party. It played through the summer of 1972 and then was released as a film with the original Broadway cast, which included Esther Rolle, Mabel King and Avon Long.

NBC's upcoming holiday production of THE WIZ LIVE! will star newcomer Shanice Williams as Dorothy alongside Grammy and Golden Globe-winner Queen Latifah as the Wizard, nine-time Grammy-winner Mary J. Blige as Evillene, original Dorothy, Stephanie Mills, as Auntie Em and David Alan Grier as the Cowardly Lion.

"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 production opened on Broadway in 1975 at the Majestic Theatre, starring Mills. It won seven Tonys, including best musical. As previously announced, Mills is set to return to the show on NBC, this time in the role of 'Auntie Em'.

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 Fiersteinproviding 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.