playbill vip

Stepping into the enchanting Land of Oz, as we take a walk down the yellow brick road again in L. Frank Baum's classic tale of “The Wizard of Oz,” Honesdale’s newest, and most fantastic musical adventure yet. You don’t want to miss as our four heroes encounter wicked adversaries, mischievous creatures, and even flying monkeys in our new student Broadway production with stunning special effects and Broadway caliber performances.

The narrative of Kansas-native Dorothy Gale, who, following a storm, finds herself in the vibrant and temperamental Land of Oz, where she meets a Scarecrow, Tinman, and Lion, is a tale ostensibly as old as time. Their yellow brick-paved journey to the luminescent Emerald City to meet the Great and Powerful Oz, where the pursuit to fulfill individual wishes — which include returning to Kansas (Dorothy), getting a brain (Scarecrow), heart (Tinman), and courage (Lion) — touches on a deeper, philosophical meaning that will resonate with those familiar with The Wizard of Oz and, at the very least, lay the groundwork of a lifetime of appreciation for the uninitiated.

The talent onstage, comprised of both older students and precociously young cast members, appear as if they jumped adroitly into a nostalgic past, pushing all the right redolent buttons, in a surreal dreamscape that consistently awes. While some may posit that the performances feel like impersonations, the truth is that these archetypal depictions have been so interwoven into the fabric of pop culture that attendees wouldn’t expect anything less than characterizations that contentedly conjure what they know and love. Director Scott D. Miller, choreographer, hair and makeup artist, and costumer Mason Marie Clark, music director Martha Curtis, orcehstra director Betty Ann Robson, set designer Stacey Roerig, and technical director Shawn Garing seem to intrinsically understand this, certifying that the scenes and musical numbers (by Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg, and Herbert Stothart) echo euphoniously as an homage to the original source material.