Actors from The Wizard of Oz

Two of the actors from the recent performance of The Wizard of Oz came to speak to the Year 3/4 children. We were fortunate to have the actor that played the lead role of Dorothy, as well as The Good Witch. The children enjoyed finding out about their experience and had plenty of good questions to ask.

Some of the interesting things we found out were:

• They didn't have a script and during the first week of rehearsals the actors had to work out what they were going to say.
• As they didn't have a script to follow the actors could just make it up if they made a mistake or thought of something better to say.
• When they started planning the performance they looked at the different skills or abilities the actors had and tried to incorporate them into the performance. Dorothy was a good tap dancer, so instead of tapping her shoes to go home at the end of the performance she did a tap dance.
• Dorothy didn't wear the same pair of silver shoes for the whole performance as she needed some pieces of metal on the soles for the tap dance, but they would have made too much noise during the rest of the performance.
• To make the witch look tall the actor who played the wizard hid under the witch's cloak and carried her on his shoulders. When Dorothy poured the water over the witch and she had to look like she was melting the wizard lowered himself down and then disappeared through a hole in the stage and then the witch disappeared through the hole just leaving her cloak behind, which was held up by some wire.