Word: wiz
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...biggest boost nationwide came from Van Me Coy's The Hustle, which has made the national charts for an extraordinary 18 weeks. Other popular Hustle records include Loggins & Messina's Pathway to Glory, Consumer Rapport's Ease On Down the Road (from the Broadway musical The Wiz), Herbie Mann's Hijack and Ester Phillips' What a Difference a Day Makes. None, however, quite matches Me Coy's hit. "Do it," exhorts the record. "Do the Hustle." And they do, they...
When Director Geoffrey Holder was called in to rescue The Wiz during its disastrous pre-Broadway tour, he found that his biggest problem was the company's low morale. For Holder, a 6-ft. 6-in. Samson of a man from Trinidad, the solution was easy. He assembled the cast and crew onstage and asked them to pray while he exorcised the evil dispirit by burning incense given him by his father...
Holder used the right rite. Last week The Wiz-an all-black rhythm-and-blues adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz-won seven Tony Awards: Best Musical, Best Supporting Actor and Actress in a Musical, Choreography, Score, and two for Holder himself as Director and Costume Designer...
...rafters. The Yellow Brick Road is a quartet of lanky dudes in brilliant yellow brick-patterned tailcoats. An armor of beer cans and garbage cans makes the Tin Man. Originally scheduled not only to direct and costume the show but to do the choreography and play the Wiz as well, Holder had canceled out when he encountered "difficulties" with the management. The real problem, he says, was that "they began to have doubts that one man could do it all. And that was an insult to my energy...
...Wiz, Holder was determined to convey "the full richness of black culture. Black lingo is beautiful." He adds: "I told the actors to speak it as if they were doing Shakespeare." He modeled the reunion of the Good Witches of the North and the South on a vision of "Josephine Baker and Lena Horne meeting in London after they hadn't seen each other in years...