Your Black Bloggers The official gathering spot for black bloggers
“With most television shows, you have the opportunity to cut and to go back and re-film and perfect as you go along,” said Tazewell, a Tony Award nominee. “With this, there’s no opportunity to do that. It does need to play as if we’re on a Broadway stage. We hit the ‘Go’ button and there’s no turning back.”
On the makeup end, Dave Elsey, who won an Oscar in 2011 for co-creating the look for “The Wolfman,” has teamed up with his wife, Lou, to update the Oz creatures for 2015, but without having the slower pace of a movie shoot.
“The biggest challenge is to get everything on in such a small amount of time and making sure that everything is locked down and perfect,” said Lou Elsey, who worked with her husband on the effects for the final “Star Wars” prequel.
The TV musical stars 19-year-old newcomer Shanice Williams as Dorothy, Queen Latifah as the Wiz, Mary J. Blige as the Wicked Witch of the West, Ne-Yo as the Tin Man, Elijah Kelley as the Scarecrow, David Alan Grier as the Cowardly Lion, as well as Common, Uzo Aduba, Amber Riley and Stephanie Mills, the original Broadway Dorothy.
Tazewell and the Elseys have created looks that are both concrete and evocative, using a mix of foam latex and acrylic paint. Hundreds of costumes – relax, there are spares on hand – have been made, not to mention dozens of noses, wings, wigs and tails.
Quick changes – some can take as long as a commercial break and others only a minute – are required to switch actors into items like padded bodysuits and masks. Teams will be standing by for touch-ups.
