Performance Issues

Scott Hedley on Facebook alerted me to a Playbill ad seeking unpaid actorsin New York for Dorothy in Oz, “a skewed take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, set in a mental hospital.” The featured parts:

Dottie - A mentally disturbed seventeen-year-old, who has been involuntarily committed to the Oslin Center, a psychiatric institute in Kansas.

Aunt Em - Dottie’s aunt and legal guardian.

Mrs. Goode/Glinda - Dottie’s flaky therapist, as well as one of the characters in Dottie’s hallucination.

Dr. Green/The Wicked Witch of the West Wing - The insensitive doctor in charge of Dottie’s case, as well as the antagonist in Dottie’s hallucination.

Skarekrow - A goth-rocker suffering from severe drug dependency and depression in Dottie’s hallucination.

Rusty - A heartless ruffian with anger issues in Dottie’s hallucination.

Mr. Lyons - An overweight sexual deviant with “performance issues” in Dottie’s hallucination. . . .

The Great Oz/ Dr. Oslin - The mysterious man, whom Dottie and her friends seek for aid in her hallucination, as well as the busy head of the Oslin Center.

I’m guessing this adaptation has a different target audience from The Yellow Brick Road, mentioned here and just reviewed in the New York Times.

The company behind this show, Adam Roebuck Productions, is also preparing an R-rated version of Alice in Wonderland. Two years ago the organization produced a play of The Wizard of Oz as adapted by Kathryn Schultz Miller for children and families. Again, different target audience.