Duane Cyrus was no more than 9 years old, sitting in the front row of the mezzanine at New York's Majestic Theatre watching "The Wiz" with his mom and sister.
"I could see the entire show, and I was blown away," he recalled. "When I saw that, I realized I wanted to be a performer, and seeing all of those beautiful Black people on stage in a story that I knew from seeing the Judy Garland (film), that impacted me to this day."
Sheherazade Holman plays the good witch Glinda and Dana Cimone is Dorothy in "The Wiz," coming to Centennial Hall Jan. 6-11.
"('The Wiz') was one of the first (musicals) where Black people could see themselves on stage in a Broadway theater," said Sheherazade Holman, who plays Glinda in "The Wiz" revival that Broadway in Tucson is bringing to Centennial Hall Jan. 6-11. "Having our culture immersed on stage unapologetically, it's huge."
"The Wiz," playwright William F. Brown and composer Charlie Smalls' adaptation of Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," tells the story of Dorothy's journey of self-discovery through a Black cultural lens. Smalls' score included the iconic theme song "Ease On Down the Road" and music that borrowed from soul, gospel, R&B and 1970s disco.
With an all-Black cast and creatives, the show opened at the Majestic Theatre on Jan. 5, 1975, and ran on Broadway for four years, picking up seven Tony Awards including the coveted Best Musical.
The show toured for several years in the late 1970s and spun off the film version with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson in 1978. It also paved the way for the hugely successful Black musicals "Dreamgirls" (1981), "The Color Purple" (2005) and "Hamilton" (2015).
In 2017, the original Broadway cast album, which had sold millions of copies, was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.
Two years ago, "The Wiz" was revived with new choreography from JaQuel Knight and additional material to update the characters and times by Amber Ruffin. The music has also been updated to reflect current trends.
The tour's second leg, which launched last spring, opens in Tucson.
Cyrus, the director of the University of Arizona School of Dance, said the show resonates today just as it did when he was 9, sitting in the Majestic.
"Here is this young woman that, for her sincerity, her courage, she has all the things that those guys don't have when she got to Oz," he said. "She had courage, she had a heart. She could feel all of those things. And I think that's a beautiful story."
D. Jerome is The Tin Man in the North American tour of "The Wiz," coming to Centennial Hall Jan. 6-11.
"Having this show on the road is something that is a unifier," said D. Jerome, who plays The Tin Man. "It's something that just brings the communities together because with the show and the music, I don't think there's any room for division.
"I think you kind of recognize that we are all kind of on a journey towards self discovery, and once we realize that we are strong, we are powerful, we are courageous, we have a heart, we have a brain and we also have community and we can be right at home where we are, I think that that helps us find sort of a resolve within ourselves."
