Musicals are always a technical challenge. Childrens' Theatre is always a technical challenge. Put them together, and you have a technical nightmare! Add to that the challenge of this show's familiarity through the famous MGM motion picture, and you begin to have an idea of what you must face. In my youth, the showing of The Wizard of Oz on television was an annual event anticipated by all. It's popularity is unmatched. Its dialogue is quoted the world over. Therefore, one must assume that an audience enters the theatre with a good many preconcieved ideas about how things should look and perform. Of course, there are many motion picture effects that can not be duplicated on the live stage. Therefore, many decisions must be made about how to "do" the things that the audience expects in such a way that they will accept. From natural disasters to the magic of the witches, there are many challenges. In the end, we used four 48" blacklight fixtures, one 8" strobe light, one 14" mirror ball, one high volume smoke machine, 84 square feet of black sharkstooth scrim, 160' of half inch irrigation tubing, 64' of half inch ridgid copper tubing, 100' of one quarter inch copper tubing, 72 square feet of blacklight reflective fabric, two gallons of Sculpt or Coat, three pounds of jumbo cut glitter, and 74 heavy duty 4" swivel casters to bring all the bells and whistles to life.

With so many different settings, I decided to be very selective and place everything on wagons. Our facility does not have flying capabiltiy, so everything had to go in the already tiny offstage areas. In the model, you can see the idea for the tornado. The actual construction was done with irrigation tubing and blacklight reflective fabric. We wound up using three tornadoes to cover our stage area. Unfirtunately, the light level of the scene was too low for any photographs to turn out.

We began by painting the yellow brick road for the aisles on 20 yard x 2 yard strips of cotton muslin. These were then rolled up and stored until they could be placed in the aisles.

We constructed the walls of the light boxes in the shop and stored them until we could assemble them on stage.

The frames begin to stack up.

At the first opportunity, we painted the layout on the stage deck, so the choreography could begin.

Although all the students just hate working with it, I decided to use polystyrene foam in two inch thickness for much of the set. My concern was keeping the weight of the wagons down.

We cut arches into the opposing sides of the light boxes and covered them with sharkstooth scrim. This gave us the ability to produce a lot of "magic" effects.

The roof for the Kansas farmhouse takes shape in the shop.

The bannister for the Wicked Witch of the West's dungeon was cut from three quarter inch plywood with a sabre saw.

We made the shingles from cardboard and distressed them with a little paint.

The shingles were attached in the shop with a staple gun.

The two inch styrofoam works well as the stones on the Witch's staircase. We applied the "stones" using Sculpt or Coat as an adhesive.

A Sureform tool is used to shape the stones. Of course, this creates a huge mess in the shop.

I wanted the fence for the Kansas farmhouse to be a little out of the ordinary. There isn't going to much in the way of beauty on this setting, so I thought a little special touch would be appropriate for Aunt Em.

We shaped the finials for the fence posts on the router table.

The finials were held in place with dowel rods that were pre-drilled into the post and the finial.

A little polyvinyl glue goes a long way.

I wanted to add some rough texture to the stones of the Witch's staircase. I wanted it to appear as uninviting as possible. I found that drywall joint compound and a little sawdust did the trick.

The mixture was globbed on using a paint brush. Attempts were made to make the joint compound "peak" whenever possible.

One of the most memorable moments in the film is the first visit with the "Wizard" when he appears as a giant head floating in mist. I had to decide how to handle this effect in a way the was possible for us. The effect needed to be striking and scary. I decided that a pair of ominous eyes floating in the darkness might just do the trick. Here we are cutting the template for the eys to be cut out of the two inch styrofoam later, and installed in one of the light boxes with a red light behind the scrim.

In the film, Kansas is in Black an white. When Dorothy opens the door on Munchkinland, the color is breathtaking. We could not do Kansas in complete black and white, but we did attempt to keep color to minimum. I wanted there to be a striking difference when the lights came up Munchkinland. I remembered many different colored flowers, so we cut flower units from the styrofoam and strengthened them with the drywall compound.

We tested many colors against each other to fnd the best contrasts.

The colors were a lot of fun. This became one of the more popular chores in the shop.

The top deck of the Witch's staircase takes shape. The bannister is against the wall in the ackground.

A door had to be cut into the back of the staircase so the Flying Monkeys could come out of their cave.

Of course, everyting was placed on casters. 74 heavy duty 4" swivel casters were used in this show.

A munchkin house gets a touch up.

The farm house roof is installed and secured with a 4" post.

The walls of the farmhouse are covered with styrofoam.

The Wicked Witch's crystal ball gets an incandescent light fixture installed and wired.

The crystal ball included a switch so the actress could control it. We used a green bulb for a neat effect.

This is a necessary addition to the farmhouse. After all, everyone can't go to Oz.

We needed away for the actress to gete up and down from the backside of the staircase. We have gotten a lot of mileage from this little ladder unit.

I agonized over how to do these gates. Finally, I remembered my favorite rule...KISS...KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID! A little copper tubing and a whole lot of glitter and gold paint did the trick.

It just would not be a Spring High musical without a rediculous amount of glitter. Here, the panels for Glinda's wagon get the treatment.

We found the styrofoam came in handy for producing many of the props as well.