Word: wiz
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...when Judy Garland first introduced millions of Americans to the wonders of Technicolor, The Wizard of Oz has been an important part of American culture. Uproot the entire story, drop it into the African-American world of the 1970's, and Frank Baum's classic childrens' story becomes "The Wiz," a hip melange of pop culture and fairy tales. This spring's performance shows off a number of excellent and excited performers, but in many ways fails to pull off this complicated and challenging musical...
Towards the end of the act the title character makes his first appearance. Chip Greenridge is simply marvelous as The Wiz, and is easily able to reconcile his character's initial earthshaking impressions with the wilted, humiliated demeanor that follows his exposure as a fraud. Greenridge also possesses an extremely powerful voice, but even he is no match for the pit orchestra...
...Wiz's" most salient (and unfortunately difficult to solve) problems is that the orchestra is simply too loud. Although they suffer from intonation problems, the players are solid and and the sound is balanced within the ensemble; however, the group overpowers the vocalists in almost every musical number. Sadly, in a room as acoustically imperfect as the Leverett Old Library it is close to impossible for even a small pit to avoid drowning out unamplified singers...
...Wiz" is not an easy show to produce, and is probably a little too ambitious for this cast in this venue. However, if you can make it past the first act you just might be charmed by the cast's enthusiasm, and you will almost certainly leave with a fun song caught in your...
That has helped spark an enthusiastic response among cutting-edge audiophiles. The Wiz, a New York City-based audio-products chain, reports brisk sales for its stock of both DCC and minidisc players. Sony says it will sell about 70,000 MiniDisc players...