The Wizard of Oz (1942 musical) The Wizard of Oz (1942 musical) The Wizard of Oz is a musical commissioned by the St. Louis Municipal Opera (The Muny) based on the novel, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum and the 1939 film, "The Wizard of Oz" and using the film's songs by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg. The book of the musical is by Frank Gabrielson, who would later write an adaptation of "The Marvelous Land of Oz" for Shirley Temple (1960). The musical was first presented in 1942 at The Muny and has been revived many times thereafter, both by The Muny
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz pictures and be pleasurable to read. Carroll rejected the Victorian-era ideology that children's books should be saturated with morals, instead believing that children should be allowed to be children. Building on Carroll's style of numerous images accompanying the text, Baum combined the conventional features of a fairy tale (witches and wizards) with the well-known things in his readers' lives (scarecrows and cornfields). "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is considered the first American fairy tale because of its references to clear American locations such as Kansas and Omaha. Baum agreed with authors such as Carroll that fantasy literature was important for