A Broadway Musical the black-themed musical itself. "The Wiz" proved to be Brown's only success. Following a dismal October–November tryout with Helen Gallagher and Julius LaRosa at the theatre in the Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, the producers fired most of the cast and creative personnel, including director/choreographer George Faison. Gower Champion was called in to rescue the Broadway-bound production with only a month to go, but he feared that the show's defects were too serious to remedy and insisted on receiving a "Production supervised by" credit only. After 14 previews, the Broadway production opened and closed the same night at the Lunt-Fontanne
John Morris (composer) to Independence, Kansas while he was young, and continued studying piano. By the late 1940s, he moved back to New York City, where he studied at both Juilliard School and at The New School for Social Research. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Morris helped to compose incidental music and dance numbers for a number of Broadway productions, including "Wildcat" (1960), "Hot Spot" (1963), "Baker Street" (1965), "Dear World" (1969), "Mack & Mabel" (1974), and "Hamlet" (1975). He had written and produced his own musical, "A Time for Singing", released in 1966. Morris worked with Mel Brooks, starting with Brooks'