summer job

last week i watched the new movie version of the musical Hairspray based on Charm City's own John Walters original and hilarious movie that featured Ricki Lake.....today, I watched The Wiz. all of this is in preparation for a summer job i took on directing the theater program for a summer kids camp. i've decided to do a medley of songs from some of my favorite musicals.

i haven't watched The Wiz in over 20 years. my parents bought me the double LP record because I was so obsessed with the musical. (i don't believe we owned a VHS yet when i was wearing this Beta tape thin by multiplie viewings.) i remember watching this over and over and over again and never getting tired of it. i was sad to discover that i think i may have left that beloved LP with my parents--i hope they haven't sold it or given it away. it would be interesting to see it again.

watching the movie version of this musical again is weird. there are two pretty racy scenes when they encounter the perfume factory workers and get stoned on poppy perfume and then the sweatshop scene where the workers are liberated and peel off their shells. wow wee woo wee. i laugh because i'm sure my parents knew that those parts weren't having any affect on me at all, but i can imagine that they were surprised by how much i liked this particular musical.

there were also wistful moments when i realized that when Dorothy and crew enter OZ, that first amazing sequence where the dancers are bathed in different colors, green, red, then gold was staged in the plaza of the World Trade Center in NYC. gone now. And also, that i had very strong feelings for the Michael Jackson of this era......gone, as well. During the film, as the Scarecrow, he wears a Reeses Peanut Butter cup wrapper for his nose. I wish he had stopped there. I was so in love with him then.