Wichita teen is latest to slip into Dorothy’s ruby red slippers for ‘Wizard of Oz’
Cami Abraham has a confession.
“Before I auditioned, I had never seen ‘The Wizard of Oz’ all the way through, until it was in this season,” said the 17-year-old actress, who plays Dorothy in the classic musical, opening this week for Music Theatre Wichita. “And I thought maybe I should watch it.”
She had seen bits and pieces of the classic 1939 MGM musical — face it, who hasn’t? — but the role of the Kansas farm girl became instantly ingrained with the Wichita native.
“I am now a 9, 10 (on a scale of 1-to-10), now that I am fully emerged in this show,” she said. “I’m like head-on.”
A veteran performer with the MTW teen choir, she auditioned in the spring for several shows, including “Oz.”
MTW artistic director Brian J. Marcum, who was already impressed after seeing Abraham in the lead role of “Mamma Mia!” at Wichita East last school year, was impressed with her auditions.
“She is really a great find. … She is really spectacular, a lovely person,” Marcum said. “She’s just got a voice like an angel, and she’s an angel too. She’s great.”
Marcum compares her potential to that of Desi Oakley, another Wichita native who played Dorothy in MTW’s most recent “Wizard” in 2006, and who has gone on to roles in Broadway’s “Chicago” and “Wicked,” and the lead in the national tour of “Waitress.”
Ever since her indoctrination into all things “Oz,” Abraham has carefully studied Dorothy.
“Dorothy seems like she’d be an easy role to figure out. But there’s a lot of layers to her. As each rehearsal goes by, I’m learning something new about her and her journey and her relationships with the other characters,” said Abraham, who starts her senior year at East this fall. She’s learning through this whole thing. It’s kind of a coming-of-age journey that she has throughout this whole show.”
Abraham said she wants to satisfy those who are die-hard fans of “Oz” and of her character.
“People have their idea of who Dorothy is, and how she acts and how she speaks,” she said. “It’s definitely making me work in the way I present Dorothy.”
Her directors say Abraham has acclimated well to MTW rehearsals and camaraderie — even though the teenage actress sometimes can’t believe she’ll be on center stage at the Century II concert hall.
“If you would have told 6-year-old Cami that she’d be doing this, she’d say, ‘No, you’re crazy,’” she said with a laugh.
Abraham’s senior year will be spent investigating and being courted by colleges en route to a planned career in musical theater. She has her list narrowed – to 15.
“Any of them would be lucky to have her,” Marcum said.
In Kansas, by Kansans
“The Wizard of Oz” is, understandably, MTW’s most-performed musical. This week will be the fifth run of the show, after previous productions in 1973, 1985, 1996 and 2006.
“It’s been a bit, but Kansans love this one,” Marcum said. “We’ve got new eyes on it, so it’s a reinvented version of this.”
The new eyes on the directing end of the show are all MTW veterans, albeit some in new roles.
Among them is director Debra Walton, a mid-‘90s performer at MTW who has gone on to perform on Broadway in “The Pajama Game” and “Street Corner Symphony,” and most recently was assistant director for the Broadway drama “Thoughts of a Colored Man.”
A fan of the movie, Walton had never seen a stage production of “Oz.”
“It was our Harry Potter, if you will. I know what that means to so many of us,” she said. “I approach that with care and love and respect and a little bit of reverence.”
Those who have seen previous MTW versions of “Oz” will notice J Branson’s familiar set, used in the last two editions, but with a bit of touching up.
Walton said the production staff was torn between recreating the on-stage tornado that was a memorable part of the ’96 and ’06 versions, and others who wanted video projection to simulate the twister.
Her solution? “How about use them both?”
“If you came before and saw them both and saw the cyclone that MTW has brilliantly created, guess what, it’s still gonna be there,” she said. “But for the new generation that’s coming to see it, very much in a digital age, let’s add something they won’t expect to see.”
Walton said she feels the magnitude of directing “Oz” in Kansas.
“It is such a big monstrosity of fun. I approach it knowing it is a musical, but it’s not just a musical. It’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and it’s world-renowned,” the Milwaukee native, now living in New York, said. “I’m giving it all the love and respect that’s well-deserved. As I told the team, I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, I’m just adding some jumper cables to it and sparking it up here and there.
“It’s gonna be spitfire fun and fantastic,” Walton added.
Music director Jesse Warkentin, a Wichita native and Maize High School graduate, leads the largest orchestra of the season, with 22 players in the Century II pit. While there are several renditions of “Oz,” the MTW version is closest to the script and the score of the film.
“That magic, that big, beautiful orchestra that paints a picture with the storytelling, is all right there,” he said.
Choreographer Eric Sciotto, an MTW alum who toured with Marcum and Walton in “Annie Get Your Gun” in 2000-01, said he’s surprised that “There’s strangely less dance in this show than in a lot of shows.”
The biggest numbers for the 25 adult dancers, plus teen and youth performers, are “Merry Old Land of Oz” and “Jitterbug.” The latter was famously cut from the 1939 movie but is retained in the stage version. Since there isn’t a celluloid version burned into the collective memory of the audience, Sciotto said he felt he was able to make his own mark.
“There is a lot of freedom to explore what that means,” said Sciotto, who conferred with Walton to determine that the dance would resemble the Lindy Hop, a popular style of the ‘30s.
The cast also includes Alan Ariano, who performed in MTW’s “The King & I” in 2013, as the wizard; MTW veteran and Wichita pastor Karen Robu as the Wicked Witch; and Jennifer Marcum, Brian’s wife and a veteran of Broadway’s “Beauty and the Beast” and national tours of “Annie Get Your Gun” and “State Fair.”
Marcum compares doing “The Wizard of Oz” in Kansas to performing “Oklahoma!” in Oklahoma — which he also was a part of. Although a Kansan just the past few years, Marcum and his family moved from Syracuse, N.Y., which was in the next town over and the home of “Oz” author L. Frank Baum and celebrates an Oz Fest every year.
“It’s a celebration,” he said of the MTW show. “This is really the place to do it. It’s nice to do it here in Kansas with Kansans.”
The enthusiasm and willingness for MTW alums to come back to Wichita to direct and perform is a testament to Wayne Bryan, Marcum’s predecessor with a 34-year history with the organization, Marcum said.
“The groundwork that Wayne has laid for all of us has brought us all back here where we got our start,” he said.
‘THE WIZARD OF OZ’
When: July 27-31; performances at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, July 27-28; 8 p.m. Friday, July 29; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, July 30; and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, July 31
Where: Century II concert hall, 225 W. Douglas
Tickets: $25-$72, from mtwichita.org, 265-3107 or the Century II box office
