WIZARD OF OZ
(1982)
Our other ‘small’ production for this year was the “Wizard Of Oz”. The four scheduled performances quickly sold out and we added a fifth performance which also rapidly sold out. The tickets for the extra show sold out in fifteen minutes!!!! (so much for the negative impact of our critic’s review from last year!) The special effects with such as the cyclone, shrinking witches, man-eating cauldron, objects flying over the audience, echoing ghostly voices and so on added much to the entertainment. The brilliantly colorful set, elaborate costumes, props and the efforts of our 150 member production company (including Douie the dog as Toto) provided a great show.
The enthusiastic response from an entranced audience brought smiles back to the casts’ faces...the trauma of the “Annie Get Your Gun” saga was nearly forgotten.
One last anecdote......in one rehearsal, Bobby Duchesneau, playing The Wizard, was emerging through the stage trap door as he made his grand entrance. The lengthy microphone cord buried under his cape was wired into an echo machine....all was going well until the mic chord became caught on the trap door nearly choking Bobby and provoking several rather strong unscripted words which echoed through the theatre provoking laughter from the entire cast and bringing the rehearsal to a temporary abrupt halt.
(thanks to Heather for the use of her autographed program the illustrations for which were the work of Mike McBride - see the productions memorabilia section)
