The Wizard of Oz is brought to life on the Martha Cohen Theatre stage.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road and join Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP) over the rainbow this holiday season for the musical stage adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s timeless classic, The Wizard of Oz.
Featuring iconic songs and wonderfully vibrant characters, The Wizard of Oz celebrates the enduring power of friendship, bravery, and believing in oneself, and warmly reminds us that in the end, there really is no place like home.
But ATP has a few more reasons why this production of The Wizard of Oz will be particularly wonderful for Munchkins of all ages this holiday season!
IT’S BIG.
A core cast of 12 adult actors. A youth ensemble of 10 young performers. Directors, designers, choreographers, musicians, stage managers, child supervisors…and of course, 2 dogs.
With a creative team of over 30 people, The Wizard of Oz is the largest production in Alberta Theatre Projects’ over-50-year history. Featuring a wealth of exceptional and award-winning local talent, innovative design, an exciting partnership with Forte Musical Theatre AND real dogs onstage, audiences are bound to be whisked up in the wonder and magic of the land of Oz.
“We are upping our game,” said ATP Artistic Director Haysam Kadri in an interview with LiveWire Calgary. “We really want to showcase our community on this stage, and this will be the largest musical that ATP has done in its history. We’re going to have 22 people and a dog on stage. So, we’re putting out all the bells and whistles.”
THERE’S DOGS!
ATP has cast 2 different doggos to play Dorothy’s best pal, Toto. Out of more than 30 submissions and a highly competitive audition process, two paw-some pups came out on top: Breezie, a 6-year-old Cairn Terrier (just like the original Toto in the iconic 1939 film production) who excels in competitive dog sports; and Duncan, a 1-year-old Cairn Terrier-Westie mix who has played Toto once already in The Renert School’s production (at only 5 months old).
“Breezie and Duncan are wonderfully trained dogs which will be such an asset to the demands of our show,” says the show’s director, Tracey Power. “They also exude a cheeky farm dog quality that I just couldn’t deny.”
Breezie and Duncan will be alternating performances, and both are ready to steal audience hearts (and more than a few scenes)!
GOING EMERALD: The Wizard of Oz ‘Go Emerald’ Recycling Drive
ATP invited Calgarians to help build Emerald City – one recycled treasure at a time. Hundreds of items were collected during a community drive from October 21 – 31. Donated household items, as well as second-hand items collected from Goodwill and salvage centres, will be reimagined and transformed into the sets and props that will create the magical world of Oz. Everything from old bicycles and umbrellas to old yogurt tubs and cake pans; from wooden spoons and spatulas to hundreds of tin cans and plastic bottles – all will be making appearances on the stage this holiday season.
The show’s set, lighting and props designer Narda McCarroll was inspired by the idea of making the land of Oz echo Dorothy’s world back in Kansas. In the same way that the same actors who play the Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion also play the Kansas farmhands on the Gale family farm, “Why not have everything in Oz somehow echo Dorothy’s world in Kansas?” McCarroll said in a recent interview with CBC Radio. “It starts in Kansas in the Great Depression, in a time when people reused everything, and did not waste anything. So, it has that extra echo for this particular production.”
Besides the interesting creative possibilities, the ‘Go Emerald’ design helps make this massive production possible, and just as importantly, much greener.
“This seemed like a great way to create these large spaces without having to spend a lot of money buying new materials – and also having the plus of recycling and reusing things,” McCarroll said, adding, “I have to be able to adapt to the specifics of what comes in, which is a challenge, but also quite fun.”
“We hope it feels quite magical and surprising."
The Wizard of Oz runs at Alberta Theatre Projects from November 25 – January 4 at the Martha Cohen Theatre at Werklund Centre. Tickets are available now at albertatheatreprojects.com.
Alberta Theatre Projects is a Calgary-based, not-for-profit, professional theatre company. We create live, world-class contemporary theatre from our home in the Martha Cohen Theatre at Werklund Centre. We are a national leader in new play development. Programming is driven by the collision of diverging ideas, points of view, class, gender, or cultural perspectives and is selected from the finest Canadian and international plays, and new works commissioned and developed in-house. Our productions radically explore our space, blurring the line between the audience and the artist through multiple seating configurations each season.
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