Oh how I miss The Wiz By Zetto Martensen

I remember the day very well, the day of the school play auditions. The play was The Wiz. I was extremely scared about what was going to happen. was in safe ground though, due to the fact that I'm friends with the director, Mrs. Turner. My name is called, I walk into the cafeteria. Nobody else was in the room besides me, who was performing in front of all of the judges, and the judges, Mrs. Turner included. I knew most of the judges too. There was Bob, Mrs. Lavine, Miss McKenzie, Miss Simpson, and ofcourse, Mrs. Turner. I was really nervous, and all in all, I gave a pretty lousy audition. I wanted to be the Scarecrow. I was required to sing a song from the play if I wanted to be a lead, so I sang Ease on Down the Road. I sang much better than I thought I would to be honest. And I'm proud to say that everyone was impressed. I was also required to recite a monologue of some sort, so I recited Heath Ledger's "Why so Serious" speech from The Dark Knight, I did everything I could to impersonate him, and ended up freaking the judges out.

Finally, I got the Email, the Email of who would play who. I was excited to read where my name would be. I didn't get the Scarecrow, but now that I think about it, I got an even better part. I was casted as The Wiz, and that made me feel cool partly because I was the title character. At our first meeting, the whole cast was in the cafeteria, we all got scripts, and Mrs. Turner made me sing my song in front of everybody, it was humiliating, because I was really off key, but whatever, I got better at the song. When I received my script, I got more than I bargained for, I had the longest monologues in the play, which scared me because there were only 3 months to rehearse. Not to mention I had two solos and one of them is really hard to sing, but I went to a few private rehearsals with Bob (the musical director) and he changed my key up on both songs to make it easier. I really liked both of my songs, and I liked being my character, The Wiz, because even thought I was only in two scenes, I controlled those scenes. It felt awesome to yell at Kayla (Dorothy), Allison (Scarecrow), Maddy (Tinman), and Ross (Lion). By the way, their performances were pretty amazing, in my scenes atleast. Rehearsals were lots of fun, way better than school classes. And another cool thing, was that everyone who worked on the play respected me, Mrs. Turner, Richard (Production Design), Geoff (Sound), Jennifer (Costumes), Melanie (Costumes), Christy (Help and stuff), the whole band, Janet (Sound), and maybe most of all, Michael Eckstein (he worked a lot on my sets and my costume). "It's all up to you, Zetto" they said that to me all the time, I felt so in charge.

(Me and Bob Eckman, The amazing musical director)

Another thing that I would like to point out about my character, was that I based his voice almost entirely on Daniel Day Lewis in There Will be Blood. I don't really know why, when I was reading the script I just felt like his voice in that film matched the character the best. I also kind of based his movements, and a little bit of The Wiz's personality on Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), at times, it fit the character. Other than that I tried to be original with the performance.

In my debuting scene in the play, I am not seen as human, rather as a huge puppet with a big head, and a mouth that moves. I start off moving down the aisle towards the stage where Dorothy, Lion, Scarecrow, and Tinman are all waiting to see me. The puppet was heavy as hell, which kind of distracted my singing (I sing one of my solos as I'm walking down the aisle to introduce myself), I also controlled the mouth, which was kind of difficult, but I had two people at the side of me to control the arms, John Kirby, and Lola Collasso. The point of the puppet is to scare the audience, and it actually did. After the show people are all "Dude when that puppet looked at me it was so freaking scary." The puppet was probably the most impressive achievement of the whole show, it was a visual breakthrough in theatre I think. Much of the dance choreography, by Mrs. Turner, is also extremely well done, and it's cool to see it executed on stage.

I don't have any pictures of the puppet yet, but when I get a hold of some, I'll post it as soon as possible.

A lot of great pictures from the play were taken by Janette Paule, and you can see them at http://www.paulepics.com/ check it out.

Now, I would like to talk about the plays' musical scoring. It sounded fantastic, I was very impressed at how great all of these people sounded. It gave the play a great narrative, and it gives you a more Wiz-y time. All of the soloists also did a great job, starting with the first song, sung by Caroline Rogers as Auntie Em, to the last song, sung by Kayla Martinez as Dorothy. Bob Eckman is a musical genius, and I hope desperately that I can work with him more in the future.

Alright, the performances by the whole cast. Notably the leads and the people with multiple roles were spectacular. Kayla Martinez as Dorothy, gives her a very sweet touch, and a very powerful voice to go along with it. She was the perfectly cast as Dorothy. Along with Allison Bartlett as Scarecrow, who nailed every single acting note that she was required to, and her voice, and her performance as Scarecrow, is particularly charming, funny, and coolio. Maddy Gonzalez as Tinman brought the emotionality that the real Tinman would have, she worked perfectly in this part, and nails her song "Slide Some Oil to Me". And ofcourse Ross McCabe as The Cowardly Lion, was hilarious. He overacted, but the performance (or this version of his performance, Mrs. Turner's direction) was meant for it, it just made it funnier. His voice is kind of rusty, but he's a lion, and he's great as The Lion. Now the Witches, first off, Mary Kelleher as Evillene, the bad witch, is very very good here, she's pretty good at playing a mean character so she's probably actually the best person in the school to play Evilline, not saying that Mary's a mean person. Next, Addaperle, the good witch of the uhh, anyway, she is played very well by Emily Boies, another good casting job, and she's good at singing her solo, I especially like her solo because it's about me. And the fact that she's the sister of Glinda, makes it really funny. Glinda, the other good witch, is played remarkably by Jenna Hakel (the person who beat me in the spelling bee), it's funny because Jenna and Emily are big opposites, like, with hair color differences and all, but Jenna's great, giving Glinda heart and spirit, and sings a very inspirational song at the end, very well. Overall, everyone, I think, was fantastic. Honorable Mentions: Luke Mott, Jacob Everest, John Kirby, Maddy Boies, Nicole Hakel, Kitana Gonzalez, Mia and Sasha Eckstein, Koa Brooks, Joseph Cusenza.

I'm gonna go ahead and take his request, I'm gonna write a paragraph about my friend, Joe Cusenza. He was a member of stagecrew, controlled the headlights. He is a great friend, and a great light worker. I appreciate all of his efforts, with everything. Good ol' Joe.

I had a lot of fun working on and being in this play, I'll always remember it. I'll always remember working with these people, and singing with these people, and acting with these people, and hanging out with these people. It's actually hard for me to talk about it without tearing up. I hope that I can work with these people again, it was a heck of a ride, and I love it.

Hahaha you can see the top of my hat where I was standing right behind Kayla (Dorothy)

(Me and Mrs. Turner, I'm gonna miss working with her)