Stephanie Mills at age 19 sits at her kitchen table – screenshot from Wazee Digital
*On this day in 1975, The Wiz premiered at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway.
A 19-year-old Stephanie Mills debuted as Dorothy in the all-Black version of “The Wizard of Oz,” opposite Hinton Battle as the Scarecrow, Tiger Haynes as the Tin Man, Ted Ross as the Lion, Dee Dee Bridgewater as Glinda the Good Witch of the South, André DeShields as the Wizard, Mabel King as Evillene the Wicked Witch of the West, Clarice Taylor as Addaperle the Good Witch of the North, and Phylicia Rashad, who appeared in the original Broadway company as a Munchkin and a Field Mouse, while also understudying the role of Glinda. She can be seen below at the 0:18 mark.
Mills, straight out of Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy, had a whole career before stepping into Dorothy’s shoes. As a little girl, she started out singing gospel at Brooklyn’s Cornerstone Baptist Church. In 1968, at age 9, she appeared in the Broadway musical Maggie Flynn, and at age 11 won Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater for six consecutive weeks.
In 1973, she signed a deal with Paramount Records and released her first single “I Knew It Was Love.”
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She then signed with Motown for two albums, but neither produced a hit single.
Meanwhile, during the early 70s…
Ken Harper – The New York Public Library Archives
Ken Harper, the program affairs director at New York’s WPIX Radio, began thinking about producing a new musical version of L. Frank Baum’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” but within the context of Black culture, and with soul music. William F. Brown signed on to write the book, Charlie Smalls would contribute the music and lyric, and Harper hired Gilbert Moses to direct. But during tryouts in Detroit, Moses wasn’t working out and had to be replaced.
Flying in with his proverbial cape to save the production – with fresh ideas for staging as well as costume design – was Harper’s new director hire, dancer/choreographer Geoffrey Holder. Below, Holder explains how he swooped into Detroit and used both “psychology” and KFC to boost morale among the cast and crew.
Ticket sales were so low during the show’s journey from Detroit, to Baltimore, to Broadway, that Harper reportedly had closing notices ready to post on opening night, Jan. 5, 1975. Despite all of the production drama, Holder was nothing but upbeat in this footage from that night.
Harper’s bad feelings about the Broadway opening were spot on, as The Wiz received poor reviews from mainstream critics. But soon after its New York debut, an editorial urging Black folk to see the play appeared in the New York Amsterdam News, the oldest black newspaper in the country. The writer suggested that white critics might not understand The Wiz’s references to Black culture or appreciate its use of Black vernacular and expression of Black pride. It was therefore up to Black people to see the production and spread the word.
With assists from the New York Amsterdam News editorial and the buzz it sparked in the Black community, ticket sales for The Wiz skyrocketed. The show went on to win seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Choreography (George Faison), Best Costume Design (Geoffrey Holder), Best Director of a Musical (Geoffrey Holder), Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical (Ted Ross), Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical (Dee Dee Bridgewater), and Best Original Score (Charlie Smalls). The Wiz eventually moved from The Majestic Theatre to The Broadway Theatre on May 25, 1977. It wouldn’t close until four years later, on Jan. 28, 1979, after 1,672 performances.
André De Shields, who played the title role, would later write, “It was Geoffrey’s masterful people skills and embrace of magical realism that metamorphosed The Wiz from caterpillar to butterfly.”
Below is video of Mills preparing to star in “The Wiz” at age 19, followed by Mills recalling her audition for the play decades later.
Below, Mills sent SiriusXM Town Hall host Bevy Smith and cast members of NBC’s 2015 film adaptation “The Wiz Live” into a tizzy when she was asked about Diana Ross replacing her for the 1978 film adaptation, and Mills casually mentioned that she got to visit the film set many times via Michael Jackson, who was dating her at the time.
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