Happy 123rd Birthday!

 

Original poster featuring Montgomery & Stone in The Wizard of Oz (1903).

Since today is the 123rd anniversary of the first performance of The Wizard of Oz on Broadway, and since I have not been sharing many updates here recently, this seems an opportune moment to offer a report.

This last year has been extremely productive in writing my forthcoming book. I have written about 60,000 words this year. To some, that might not seem like all that many words—but absorbing and organizing over twenty-six binders of material, and over 15,000 digital newspaper files into a properly cited, easy to read, and engaging text takes a lot of time and thought—which I hope will be worth the wait. For those curious, the book is scheduled to be published in 2028 for the 125th Anniversary of the Broadway opening.

You will also start to see more frequent blog posts this year, and not all of them will be quite as vintage as 1903. I've simply decided to start sharing more stories about my design career, shows I've worked on, and reminisce a bit about the shows I've seen that seem to me worth writing about. I still have trouble thinking of shows from the 1970s and '80s as "vintage Broadway." It's still hard for me to grasp that this last January 5th was the 51st anniversary of The Wiz opening on Broadway. The 1978 bus-and-truck tour of The Wiz was my first Broadway show and was the show that made me want to work in the theatre when I grew up.

In the end it's all connected. The shows I've seen, the shows I've worked on informed who I am and how I'm approaching The Wizard of Oz on Broadway. The story goes on . . . 

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