The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (musical) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (musical) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a musical play based on the novel of the same title by L. Frank Baum that premiered at the Toronto Civic Light Opera Company in 2000. The lyrics are by James Patrick Doyle and Joe Cascone, the music is by Doyle and the book is by Cascone who also directed. This company describes the show as the most requested in their repertory and revived it in 2002 and again in 2010. Joe Cascone, artistic director of the Toronto Civic Light Opera Company, had long wanted to stage a
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz be Australia, or perhaps a magical land in the center of the great Australian desert. Another influence lay in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". A September 1900 review in the "Grand Rapids Herald" called "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" a "veritable "Alice in Wonderland" brought up to the present day standard of juvenile literature". Baum found Carroll's plots incoherent, but he identified the books' source of popularity as Alice herself, a child with whom the child readers could identify; this influenced his choice of a protagonist. Baum was also influenced by Carroll's belief that children's books should have many