A yellow brick road ran through Northfield last weekend. Or more accurately, a yellow brick road danced it’s way through Northfield, as a cast and crew of nearly 100 students in grades six through 12 performed (and worked behind the scenes) to present this year’s Spring Musical, “The Wiz”. The play is based on the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz”, and although true to the story line of the movie, the production featured some different interpretations and adaptations of themes and characters.

Anyone familiar with the story knows it is about Dorothy, a young teenage girl, who is swept up in a tornado and deposited in the mystical Land of Oz. The familiarity ends there.

The cleverly crafted tornado was a set of six dancers who swept up Dorothy and dropped her in Oz. Once she was there she met some fresh characters that weren’t in the movie and some rather different interpretations of the main characters who were in the Hollywood production. Dorothy was played to perfection by Mary DeFelice.

Dorothy’s innocence and purity carried throughout the production. Her companions, Danny Rowe as the scarecrow, Nathan Cooper as the tin man and Zach Ward as the cowardly lion were terrific in their roles as the story progressed. Danny’s slapstick approach and athletic interpretation of the scarecrow was hilarious. Nathan’s dry humor really shone off his metal costume and Zach’s beautiful voice was exceeded only by his appreciation of a field of poppies disguised as dancers and his comic delivery.

There were four witches in the movie. But none were like Keli McLellan’s “Addaperle”. A hip, swingin’, happenin’ now, “Good Witch of the North” that made semi dramatic, comic entrances and exits and gave Dorothy her magic silver slippers.

Enter the yellow brick road. And what a road it was! A trio of dancers, Hannah Gleason, Grace Hatch, and Willie Weggler, all decked out in yellow, who led Dorothy along the way for the rest of the performance.

These girls did an amazing job of blending together the disparate parts of he play and making distance seem to disappear as the play flowed from one location to another and they sang their way into everyone’s hearts.

The stagecraft and lighting (by Olivia Bussiere) were done to perfection. From the untouched slamming shutters and screen door in the opening scene to the creation of the great “Oz” and it’s seemingly miraculous operation, the audience was both entertained and amazed for the nearly two hours of the production. One of the tricks or sleight of hand methods to draw the audience’s attention away from set changes was to cut the lights and have the performers wander from one side of the stage to the other by moving up and across the aisles while wearing their “Magic Green Goggles” that had blinking green lights for the audience to watch. By the time they finished their journey the sets had changed.

The great Oz appeared late in the first act. It was a creation of Jim Jones and his stage crew. And what a creation it was! Oz was an eight foot high green ugly face, seemingly suspended in mid air with fearsome teeth, a movable jaw, red eyes, and smoke oozing from his nostrils every time he ended one of “his” pronouncements in a very deep, booming voice. Oz was crafted from foam sheeting material and operated very effectively by stage crew members hidden inside. The human side of Oz was played by Brendan Striebe and Pearl Weggler. Both players were exceptional, but in the opinion of this reporter, Pearl stole the show (overall!). Her animated performance and perfect timing with both Brendan and the group was outstanding. Her movements and facial expressions led a dimension of depth to her character. Her singing was great, and she was funny! (As a sportswriter covering a play I have to note that she is only a freshman. She’ll be back!) The second act let the patrons meet another Wicked Witch, Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West. From the moment she was rolled on to the stage in her very ostentatious “chair”(another wondrous creation by the stage crew) until her skillful “melting” disappearance she was played with a great deal of skill by Molly Clark. How such a lovely and attractive young lady with a great voice (her song, “No bad News” was terrific) such as Molly could become the embodiment of evil and ugliness at the same time is a tribute to her acting skills.

The Musical numbers flowed very well. The choreography was designed and developed by Mary Ada DeFelice, (who played Dorothy) Lorraine Monmaney, and Amy Urling (who appeared in four dance scenes and one crowd scene) and was superb. To get that many people in that many scenes moving together with such a high degree of skill and accuracy was remarkable.

Musical talent doesn’t run in Mary Ada’s family, it gallops! The accompanying music for the performances was led by her Mom, Lorraine Monmaney, She was the music director for the play, and also played the keyboard for all three performances.

The members of the “Band” who played for each of the performances on Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday afternoon were outstanding in their own right but unbelievable collectively. In addition to Lorraine,

were: T.J. Powers on Electric Guitar, Mike Stridesberg on Bass Guitar, Joanna Sumner who played Clarinet, flute and Sax, Denis Lambert on Trombone and Patrick Barrett who handled the percussion instruments.

They all did a tremendous job. Playing music for a play is like being a basketball official - if nobody notices your effort you have been successful. And last weekend everybody focused on the performers.

Once again, Mary Corrigan has pulled off an easy victory. No matter if they started before the Christmas break. No matter if she had to battle all kinds of schedule conflicts be they academic, athletic or musical, Mary once again directed an amazing show. And, she made it look easy.

The good ones always do!