The Wizard of Oz: stage vs screen

MGM's 1939 The Wizard of Oz, credited to director Victor Fleming and starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, is already a movie musical, with songs by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg. The stage version on our roster is the Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation, which premiered at London's Barbican Centre in 1987 and has never played Broadway. It sticks close to the film, so the differences are small but real.

Stage

Broadway musical (1987)

Screen

The Wizard of Oz (1939), directed by Victor Fleming

1. The stage show follows the film, not the book

The RSC asked John Kane to write the book in 1986 and obtained the rights to the 1939 film, so the stage show follows the film's screenplay closely, more so than an earlier 1942 stage version. Dorothy still meets Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, loses Toto to Miss Gulch, is swept away by the tornado, and travels to the Emerald City. It ends with her return to Kansas.

2. The Jitterbug is back

The film shot "The Jitterbug," a swing number for the trip through the haunted forest to the Witch's castle, but cut it for time. The footage is lost, though the audio and some silent home-movie film of rehearsals survive, and the Witch's line about sending "a little insect" ahead is the only trace left on screen. The RSC version restores the number in Act Two, where the jitterbugs make the travelers dance until they collapse.

3. Over the Rainbow gets an extra verse

MGM nearly cut "Over the Rainbow" from the film because executives felt it slowed the Kansas scenes and was too sophisticated for children. Mervyn LeRoy, Arthur Freed, and Victor Fleming fought to keep it, and it won the Oscar for Best Original Song. The RSC production restores an additional verse that the film does not include, so Dorothy's ballad runs a little longer on stage than it does on screen.

4. Kansas and Oz share one stage

On film, the Kansas scenes are black and white tinted sepia, and Oz is in three-strip Technicolor. On stage, both worlds play out in the same theatre, and the RSC version tries to recreate the film's atmosphere and special effects live. The story beats are the same, including the tornado, Munchkinland, the poppy field that closes Act One, and the Wizard exposed as an ordinary man.

5. Actors still play more than one part

The film already doubles its roles: Ray Bolger plays the farmhand Hunk and the Scarecrow, Jack Haley plays Hickory and the Tin Man, Bert Lahr plays Zeke and the Cowardly Lion, and Margaret Hamilton plays Miss Gulch and the Wicked Witch. The RSC version keeps that pattern. At the Barbican, Trevor Peacock played Zeke and the Lion and Bille Brown played Gulch and the Witch, opposite Imelda Staunton as Dorothy.

6. The songs are the film's songs

The score comes from Arlen and Harburg's film score, including the Munchkinland sequence, "If I Only Had a Brain," "If I Only Had a Heart," "If I Only Had the Nerve," "The Merry Old Land of Oz," "If I Were King of the Forest," and "March of the Winkies." The stage version adds more chorus singing than the film has.

7. Stage versions come in different sizes

The RSC adaptation has been staged by schools, community theatres, and touring companies for decades. Madison Square Garden staged a 90-minute version for younger audiences in 1997, with Roseanne Barr as the Witch, and again in 1998 with Eartha Kitt as the Witch and Mickey Rooney as the Wizard. In the 1998 Garden production the Witch sang the opening verses of "The Jitterbug," something the film's Witch never does.

8. Oscars on film, school stages on theatre

The film won two Academy Awards, for "Over the Rainbow" and Herbert Stothart's score, and gave Garland a special Juvenile Award. It did not turn a profit until its 1949 re-release. The stage show has never run on Broadway, but it has become a favorite of schools and community theatres, where the film's familiar songs and characters give audiences something to sing along with.

The Wizard of Oz movie vs musical: FAQs