On the yellow brick road
Fort Lewis stages The American Fairytale

From left, the principal actors in the FLC production of "Oz:” Tiffany Simonton (Zeke/Lion), Tara Ivy Sheehan (Miss Gultch/Wicked Witch), Chelsea Winslow (Aunt Em/Glinda), Rachel Gressler with Lelu the dog (Dorothy and Toto), Dawson Cole (Hunk/Scarecrow), Stephen Juhl (Hickory/Tin Man), Jake Yost (Prof. Marvel/Guard/Wizard of Oz), and Matt McDonald (Uncle Henry)./Photo by David Halterman

by Judith Reynolds

Forget Harry Potter. I’ll take Dorothy Gale anytime.

As children’s literature goes, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” by L. Frank Baum, has established itself as The American Fairytale. First published in 1900, the story centers on the dream vision of a Depression-era Kansas farm girl. When a cyclone threatens, only Dorothy fails to find safety in a storm cellar. She and her dog, Toto, are swept up by the cyclone and magically dropped into the Land of Oz. Everybody knows the rest of the story, thanks to Baum and the 1939 classic film starring Judy Garland.

Fort Lewis College, after a dry musical theater spell of a few years, will open “Oz” on March 29. The musical will run two weekends through April 7, with one matinee at 2 p.m. Sun., April 1. If you’ve never seen the stage version, which was crafted by Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Co. on the ruby heals of the sparkling MGM movie, here’s your chance.

“The book is darker than the film,” said Director Laura Bowen in an interview earlier this week. “We’ve taken the darkness and combined it with the lovable aspects of the MGM film. The dialogue is close to the film, but the look will be different.”

Baum’s view of evil in the world may be most apparent in Munchkinland. In the movie, a colorful set filled with immense tropical flowers, storybook houses and dapper Munchkins surrounded Dorothy when she stepped out from her crash landing. It looked like a plastic, Hollywood land of plenty even though terrorized by the Wicked Witch of the East. “Our concept is a bit more Tim Burtonesque,” Bowen said. “The Munchkins’ favorite color was blue, so our scheme will be a dark navy blue and black.”

And then there’s the arch villain of the piece, Miss Gultch and her counterpart in Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West, played by Tara Ivy Sheehan, a veteran of local stages, Durango High School, Durango Lively Arts and FLC.

“I make my first appearance riding a bicycle down the aisle,” Sheehan said in an interview in the theater. “I’ll park it and walk up to the farm demanding to see Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. I want Dorothy’s dog destroyed.”

Sheehan will reappear, of course, as the Wicked Witch in Oz with the same nasty goal with Dorothy tossed in for spite.

The idea of double casting, of course, comes from the film and makes perfect sense in the book.

The three farm hands who befriend Dorothy in Kansas reappear in Oz. Hunk becomes Scarecrow (Dawson Cole); Hickory is transformed into the Tin Man (Stephen Juhl); and Zeke trembles as Lion (Tiffany Simonton). The latter is the only instance of cross-gender casting so often seen these days in college theater productions. That is unless you count Toto (Lelu), a tiny Deerhead Chihuahua who will shiver her way through storms, forests, poppy fields and the Emerald City itself. Lelu happens to be Director Bowen’s pet.

“She’s never been in a show before,” Bowen said. “But she’s been around theater a lot. We’ve had to adjust a few things in the script, because she’s not trained. For example, she doesn’t run under Oz’s curtain, the stage hands have to pass her under.”

Other examples of double casting include Aunt Em/Glinda the Good Witch, played by Chelsea Winslow, a soprano voice major at FLC who has also appeared on every stage Durango has to offer. And Professor Marvel, that grand figure in all of American literature, the traveling salesman, who reappears as the other huckster, the Wizard himself (Jake Yost).

Only Uncle Henry (Matt McDonald) and Dorothy (Rachel Gressler) have one role. “Although people have seen Rachel in a number of productions,” Bowen said, “this is her first lead.”

In addition, there are a slew of actor-singers in the ensemble who double and triple as Munchkins, trees, city fathers, Ozians, Jitterbugs, monkeys and Winkies.

Director Laura Bowen stands next to her Deerland Chihuahua, Lelu, a theatrical rookie who has the dubious role of Toto in FLC’s current staging of the classic, “The Wizard of Oz.”/Photo by David Halterman

A huge cast in a show that combines reality and fantasy requires a huge commitment to costumes.

“Ginny Davis (professor of theater at FLC) is our costume designer,” Bowen said. “And she’s helped by her assistant, Maya Pierce, and a huge number of helpers.”

Masks will be worn by the principals in Oz, Bowen said, and are among the Burtonesque elements that emerge from the costume department.

“We wanted to do something special,” Bowen said. “We didn’t want to do the traditional thing, and we wanted to bring the look into the ’40s. A student, Melarie Roller, came up with designs on her own. She’s done a great job; the masks are very original.”

And then there’s the music, from the famous “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.”

“Andreas Tischhauser is our music director,” Bowen said. “He’s on the music faculty here. At most colleges, the music and theater departments have a reputation for not getting long. Andreas has been able to really bridge the gap. He’s worked with all the actor-singers, and he’s put together our orchestra.”

Because “Oz” falls on the same evenings as several big FLC Music Department ensemble concerts, Tischhauser knew he faced an obstacle. Normally the pit orchestra would consist of key student musicians. Tischhauser said in an interview last week that he knew he had to cajole a mix of available FLC faculty members, community musicians and one or two students.

“We had no choice,” Tischhauser said. “And we got lucky.” Here’s his dream lineup: Jeff Solon on clarinet and sax; Paul Bara on trombone; Gary Walker and Ryan McCurry on piano; Steve Dejka on percussion; Tim Farrell on trumpet; and Lech Usinowicz on bass. Tischhauser will conduct and play flute.

“Musical scores are very expensive,” he said. “We’ve been rehearsing off the piano score, because the full score costs $900 for one month. We rented it for only one month; it’s been an interesting challenge.”

Another key team member who is on the FLC faculty is Nathan Lee, technical director, set and sound designer. With a fantasy like “Oz,” special effects and multiple sets are daunting. Expect to see imaginative solutions.

As much fun as it is to expand on the stagecraft of this show, at its core “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” is about finding one’s salvation within. Love, courage and intelligence already lie within the Tinman, Lion and Scarecrow. Dorothy has always had the power to go home. It just takes a quintessential American, the salesman-huckster, to reveal that truth.

The idea was iconoclastic when L. Frank Baum set it forth in 1900, as Alison Lurie notes in her provocative analysis of “Subversive Children’s Literature.”

And the idea “... has since been upheld by hundreds of American politicians and by entrepreneurs of Wisdom, Confidence and Self-Realization from Dale Carnegie to Shirley MacLaine.”

Or one might add, by Rhonda Byrne, and her latest self-help publishing phenomenon, The Secret. L. Frank Baum tapped into that particular whisper more than a hundred years ago.

A classic isn’t a classic for nothing. Take that, Harry Potter. •