The Wizard of Oz (1987 musical) The Wizard of Oz (1987 musical) The Wizard of Oz is a musical with a book by John Kane, music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. It has additional background music by Herbert Stothart. It is based on the novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum and the 1939 film version written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf. Successful musicals based on the Baum novel were created in 1902 (for Broadway) and 1945 (for St. Louis Municipal Opera), the latter of which, using songs from the popular 1939 film, is still frequently
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz own reward." After Baum's death in 1919, Baum's publishers delegated the creation of more sequels to Ruth Plumly Thompson who wrote 21. An original "Oz" book was published every Christmas between 1913 and 1942. By 1956, five million copies of the "Oz" books had been published in the English language, while hundreds of thousands had been published in eight foreign languages. "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" has been adapted to other media numerous times, most famously in "The Wizard of Oz", the 1939 film starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr. Until this version, the book had