Miss Greenbelt Wins Burn Brae's Trip to Oz

Carla Williams, Miss Greenbelt 1985, wins mother nature's trip to Oz, not the Reader's Digest one. Williams offers a pleasing smile, charming, outgoing personality plus a belting, still tuneful voice winning for "The Wiz" musical numbers. Wrapped in a pink party dress, William's plays Dorothy as pert, cute, and sweet with a youthful energy.

Dorothy is the charming young lady who lives with her Aunt Em (Delores King) and Uncle Henry (Charles Logan) at their Kansas prairie farmhouse. Director, Beauford K. Woods adapts mother nature's Kansas cyclone to suit "The Wiz" indoor staging. With choreographer Andrea S. Hopkins the director invents an indoor dance Tornado—the Markka K. Williams and dance ensemble—to sway, swivel and swirl, swooping Dorothy off her feet and setting her down in the land of Oz.

By veering away from the popular Michael Jackson stylized dance, the break dance, generally the faddish, the Tornado and other dance ensembles are lackluster, even lackadaisical. From the Tornado on, Burn Brae's "The Wiz" is a departure from L. Frank Baum's book, "The Wizard of Oz" and the Judy Garland movie. In the book and movie version, Dorothy's attachment to and protection of her Oz companions—the Tinman, the Lion, and the Scarecrow,—is based on their resemblance to her Kansas family.

Suddenly cast adrift and alone in a strange land, Dorothy for the first time in her life realizes how much she loves and needs Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. "The Wiz" director and cast gloss over Dorothy's familiar association between her Kansas family and her Oz. traveling companions. And Williams' mood to the show's closing number "Home" is superficial as we never feel nor see Dorothy return to Kansas to Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.

To the young at heart and under thirteen, Dorothy's friendship with her Oz companions has the Sci Fi
appeal of children befriending E.T., the charming outer space visitor. Dorothy and her Oz family offer a whimsical, lighthearted, though unemotional development to characters.

The Scarecrow (Keith Oscar Cross), the Tinman (Ty Willis) and the Lipn (Beauford K. Woods) are a remarkable trio, thoroughly endearing, causing the young at heart and under thirteen to swarm about them for autographs. 'The Wiz" has its share of characters representing in dramatic form the forces of good over evil. Addaperle (Bernadine Mitchell) is the pop and mod faddish Good Witch of the North. Her counterpart Evillene (Bernadine Mitchell) naturally is the Wicked Witch of the West, probably tracing her roots to Salem's 17th Century witch trials.

The Wizard himself (Charles Logan) wields power over his Emerald City citizens like real world Presidents and Kings. The glitter and grandeur, pomp and circumstance of The Wiz's Emerald City rivals President Reagan's inauguration with no expense spared to show off the grandeur of his state.
Crediting Broadway's historical distinction to trends in musical productions and Burn Brae's own unique history with the range of musical shows, "The Wiz" with its whimsical lighthearted
treatment and cast to delight the children offers a rare opportunity to treat your whole family to a show….

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Miss Greenbelt Wins Burn Brae's Trip to Oz