Step by determined step, the producer Brian Moreland is following his own version of the yellow brick road as it shimmers before him this week on the stage of the Hippodrome Theatre.

Schele Williams, who is directing a new revival of the pioneering musical “The Wiz,” also has her gaze fixed firmly on those bright bricks. So does set designer Hannah Beachler, choreographer JaQuel Knight and the Baltimore-born actress Melody Betts.

“Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News” featuring Melody Betts as Evillene in “The Wiz,” which is making its world premiere at The Hippodrome in Baltimore. (Jeremy Daniel)

After “The Wiz” finishes its sold out, weeklong run at the Hippodrome Theatre on Saturday, the show will wind through a dozen more U.S. cities before arriving at its final destination: New York City’s 1,600-seat Marquis Theatre, where the production will make its Broadway debut April 17.

This isn’t just any revival, because “The Wiz” isn’t just any musical.

Nearly 50 years ago, composer Charlie Smalls and scriptwriter William F. Brown reframed the iconic 1939 movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” into an exploration of the Black experience in mid-20th century America. It was the first Broadway musical created by a team of Black artists that featured an all-Black cast, and it scooped up seven Tony Awards.

The show had its world premiere in 1974 at Baltimore’s Morris A. Mechanic Theatre, and a lot of people vividly remember seeing it for the first time.

It was a musical that scrapped the traditional Broadway show tunes for a score infused by Motown, gospel and blues. “The Wiz” was populated with characters like the big-eyed dreamers and preachers and street-corner hustlers its audience members knew well. Its message that ordinary folk with courage, perseverance and an open heart could triumph over a system that was rigged against them seemed to embody an entire community’s hopes for itself.

“This was the first production to present Black culture as beautiful, sophisticated and elegant,” said Moreland, who first saw the show with his mother as a 9-year-old boy in California.

“It was the first time on Broadway that Black people were not seen as pawns or throwaway characters. This was the musical that put us front and center in a family story that reached into you and grabbed your heart.”

Changing tune, tone for the times

Schele Williams, director of ‘The Wiz,’ speaks at a news conference announcing the return of the show to the Hippodromeo. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

In the past half-century, the world has changed. So, “The Wiz’” creative team thought the musical ought to change as well. They hired writer/comedian Amber Ruffin to rework the script and musical director Joseph Joubert to create new arrangements for Smalls’ melodies.

“Some of the jokes in the 1975 production were really really of the time,” Moreland said.

“In the original production, Glinda arrives in Oz on a watermelon rind. We had to do a lot of work to find the right version for 2023.”

Other stereotypes also fell by the wayside.

Instead of winged monkeys, the Wicked Witch of the West controls an army of monsters called “Kalidahs.” And instead of the Munchkins in Munchkinland, Dorothy will be welcomed by the residents of Tremé, the oldest Black neighborhood in the U.S., according to the tourism site Visit New Orleans.

The revival has been generating considerable theatrical buzz because it is loaded with talent both on stage and off.

Nichelle Lewis, 24, was selected to play Dorothy over 2,000 other applicants after casting associate Olivia Paige West saw the young performer’s Tik Tok videos and asked her to submit an audition tape.

“We really wanted to find someone who was unknown,” Moreland said.

Other cast members include such Broadway veterans as Deborah Cox as Glinda and Betts in the dual roles of Auntie Em and Evillene, The Wicked Witch of the West. Alan Mingo Jr. portrays the Wizard of Oz in Baltimore while talk show host Wayne Brady takes over that role for the Broadway run.

Moreland already knew the director he wanted to shepherd his new production. In 2013, he was working as a backstage dresser on the Broadway production of “Motown: the Musical.” Williams was the assistant director.

“Schele was the most gentle person in the whole production,” he said. “But she still got everything done that she needed to do. I knew then I would work with her again.”

As Williams prepared for “The Wiz,” she thought about what the production had to say to her daughters, who are 12 and 13.

“‘The Wiz’ is about what it feels like when you don’t belong,” Williams said.

“One of the hardest things for any human is to figure out what home means, and how that changes as you grow up. Every time it has happened in my life it has been terrifying. But when you find your tribe, it is the greatest feeling in the world.”

She asked Ruffin to rewrite the scene in which the Wiz, who has just been unveiled as a scam artist, presents the Scarecrow with a brain, the Tin Man with a heart and the Lion with courage.

“I did not want Dorothy‘s friends to get the most important gifts they receive from someone who overpromises but under-delivers,” Williams said. “They get their moment of realization in our production, but not from him.”

Incorporating history and movement

Melody Betts plays Aunt Em and Evillene in the new revival of ‘The Wiz,’ which celebrates its world premiere at The Hippodrome this week. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

The creative team hired Hannah Beachler to design the physical world of “The Wiz.” Beachler, who won a 2019 Academy Award for set design for “Black Panther,” was the first Black American ever nominated in that category.

For both “Panther” and “The Wiz,” Beachler created idealized worlds that seek to improve over the planet she currently inhabits. Her set design for “The Wiz” is layered with symbols celebrating Black culture, such as the black and beige triangle pattern reminiscent of African tribal cloth that forms a proscenium arch around the stage.

Beachler’s set includes references to quilt codes found in 19th-century Underground Railroad safe houses, and symbols in the 20th-century iron work designs in New Orleans’ French Quarter. The enslaved people who built the balconies hid signs of their presence inside the iron swirls. Two giant trees evoke Adrinka symbols for God and Mother Nature, while the buildings in the Emerald City are designed to resemble Black hair styles.

“I try to bring history into every single set I create,” Beachler said, adding that 26 U.S. states have no laws prohibiting hair discrimination.

In these states, “you can be fired or sent home from school because you wear your hair the way it grows out of your head,” she said. “It has to be pressed down. That is the law of the land.”

Choreographer JaQuel Knight is attempting to convey through movement what Beachler is communicating by creating a sense of place.

As the primary choreographer for Beyoncé, it was Knight who created the moves for the 2008 megahit ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring On it),” which became one of the most frequently copied dances of that era.

He’s putting his own twist on George Faison’s 1975 Tony Award-winning choreography, which was based on the long, elegant lines of modern dance.