Wonderful Witches of Oz
Starring… YOU!

A fun combination of the hit Broadway musical "WICKED" and the classic American tale "The Wizard of Oz"

All of us at Up With Kids in Utah are excited to welcome our accomplished past performers and our talented new students to our 24th year’s production of “Wonderfully ‘WICKED’ Wizard of Oz, starring… YOU!” Join us on our thrilling cyclone ride from Kansas, over the rainbow, and throughout the exhilarating magical land of Oz!

Inspiring Curriculum

All of our returning friends know this, but we’d like to reassure everyone who’s joining us for the first time that the Utah Up With Kids children’s theatre award winning curriculum is always “G-Rated” and family friendly. The activities in which we learn about singing, dancing and acting are age-appropriate, uplifting and inspiring. We celebrate family values! We strive to bring out the best in ourselves and in our students in every aspect of our program!

Acting

This year’s magical extravaganza will include great characters! You’ll practice your acting skills in fun drama games every week and then show them off in our popular performances in May! As always, every Up With Kids student will be cast as a unique named character with speaking lines and will participate in spectacular songs and dances in our show! You might take the stage in Kansas as Dorothy or her little dog, Toto, as Auntie Em or Uncle Henry, clever Hunk, tender-hearted Hickory or timid Zeke, the sly Professor Marvel or mean old Ms. Gulch on a scooter. You might pop up in Oz playing an adorable Munchkin, Chistery the acrobatic Winged Monkey, a bewitched Fiyero the Scarecrow, Boq the Tin Man, or the frightened Cowardly Lion, Madame Morrible or Dr. Dillamond or the Wizard! Goodness knows, when the Good Witch, Glinda, does battle with the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, it gets a little scary. But you’ll be delightfully surprised when Dorothy and Toto run into the Wild Things in the forest! Or the Hogwarts students doing a foreign exchange semester at dear old Shiz. Or the gloriously green Citizens of Oz in the glamerous glittering Emerald City! Munchkins, Winged Monkeys and Wild Things? Oh My! Is our Wicked Witch truly so evil that pure water will melt her? Or will there be a confusifying twister of fate?

Singing

This is going to be the most musical year ever, with the “Land of Oz Idol” fun! We will continue with our “learn to sight read music” activity in our weekly vocal development lessons. And you are going to LOVE the songs we’ll be singing! There will be some of our favorites from the movies, like “Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” and “Popular.” We’ll be creating a beribboned rainbow as we dance to the Academy Award Winning Best Song- “Over the Rainbow.”; Our tiniest students will once again steal the show as they sing “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” with munchkin voices. All of the students at Shiz will join in as Galinda and Elphaba wonder “What Is This Feeling?” And the audience will be blinded by our entire dazzling cast sharing “One Short Day In the Emerald City!”

Dancing

You will continue to develop your dance techniques this year! We’ll begin the show in all black and white and gray Kansas, dancing a brightly colored rainbow May Pole dance. Can you learn to do Dorothy’s signature hop and skip movement to “Follow the Yellow Brick Road?” Classic ballroom dance moves will highlight your performance of “Dancing Through Life.” The big surprise dance number will be the Wild Things in the forest who “Just Can’t Wait To Be King”. You’ll high step through the Emerald City in a dazzling extravaganza of emerald green Ozians belting out “One Short Day.” You’ll have a blast hip hopping with the Winged Monkeys and be swept off your feet with all of the witches “Defying Gravity!”

Cultural Learning Experiences

As always, we will be including fabulous cultural learning experiences in our years phenomenal curriculum. We’ll learn about L. Frank Baum who wrote the classic American fairy tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and W. W. Denslow who created the delightful illustrations. We’ll compare and contrast our witches to Shakespeare’s witches from Macbeth. ItÕs going to be fun to get better acquainted with the life of Broadway composer Steven Schwartz and his greatest musical achievements. Our students will analyze the artistic style of Maurice Sendak in his endearing drawings of “The Wild Things.” And by popular demand we are including even more fun movement activities with classical music, including Rossini’s “Storm” from the William Tell Overture which will set the mood for our cyclone.

Encore

Our encore number, “For Good,” will feature our entire cast performing our traditional sign language. This powerful musical number will underline the theme of our show: “When we defy gravity, our future is unlimited.” Some people dream of wealth or power. But in our performing arts journey this year, we will discover the true treasures of life- friendships, family, nature, talents, knowledge, kindness, freedom, laughter and love. So climb onto our cyclone of fun learning adventures and fly over the rainbow to STAR in this exciting tale with a twister of fate! Welcome to another great ALL-STAR production! UP WITH KIDS!