Review: THE WIZ at Hobby Center For The Performing Arts

​The national tour of The Wiz, currently running at Houston's Hobby Center through May 4, 2025, delivers a vocally powerful revival of the 1975 Tony Award-winning musical. While the performers are giving it their all, the Hobby Center's acoustics and the show's updated script leave one with a pounding headache and a groan counter that leads to the double digits (depending on how long you can bear it).

The Wiz is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is reimagined through the lens of Black American culture and music. It follows Dorothy, a young girl from Kansas, who is swept away by a tornado to the magical Land of Oz. To find her way home, she must journey to see the mysterious The Wiz, meeting memorable characters — the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Lion — seeking help. With a soulful score blending R&B, gospel, funk, and hip-hop, The Wiz is normally a joyful and empowering celebration of self-discovery, friendship, and courage. While the songs of Charlie Smalls are on full display, William F. Brown's script is updated by comedy writer Amber Ruffin.

The question arises as to why it is necessary to revive The Wiz in the first place, especially with a revised script. Ruffin is quoted as wanting to make the story "timeless" and updates the script to have Dorothy be a 16-year-old and rewrites her trio of friends as equal in age. While this leads to some funny moments, the entire script feels as if it has been rewritten for a children's theater production, with the performers left to act silly or childlike to keep the audience's attention. All four major characters have no real substance besides being guideposts on Dorothy's journey out of Oz. An illustration stems from the moment Dorothy meets Scarecrow. The crows that the Scarecrow used to struggle to scare away are no longer rude or mean to him; instead, they are now supportive. This raises the question of why the Scarecrow sings You Can't Win and undermines the purpose of his lament. Additionally, it prompts us to consider why the Scarecrow should join Dorothy at all in her adventure. 

This also applies to all the "adult" characters, as most are relegated to being overly absurd in their mannerisms and speech. For example, Aunt Em's first lines are comedic quips rather than passionate utterances of parental love, counterproductive to the song The Feeling We Once Had. By the end of the evening, my groans at superfluous jokes and lines reached the double digits, and at a certain point, I just had to accept that this was a staple of the production.

A further critique is the wall of sound that the Hobby Center of Performing Arts does to the orchestrations of this production. Snare-drum over-amplification became an annoying fixture throughout the evening of its opening performance as a clear delay from the drumstick hitting its mark to the actual sound perforated the air at every annoying slapstick. Furthermore, exemplified when a tambourine comes out for Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News, this tiny instrument filled Sarofim Hall with a mind-numbing effect. If you're a person who loves percussion instruments, this revival is for you.

While there are some exasperating aspects to this touring production here in Houston, the performances by actors and some design elements alone make this revival, at minimum, a decent one. Dana Cimone as Dorothy provides a sweet and endearing portrayal of the role, while Kyla Jade as Evillene offers some of the best vocals of the evening. The trio of friends, Elijah Ahmad Lewis as Scarecrow, D. Jerome as Tinman, and Cal Mitchell as Lion, all do their best with the material provided. Still, again, these characters no longer have the same substance. The true standout of the evening was the design elements by Daniel Brodie in the form of Video and Projection. Visually, this production is stunning, and it is thanks to Brodie. Thankfully, my eyes were not with my ears on questioning my body's attendance at this evening of theater.