Craig Zadan and Neil Meron discuss their plan to adapt the latest NBC live musical production to the Great White Way.
- Dec 5, 2015
AceShowbiz - After its success on NBC, "The Wiz Live!" is seemingly heading to The Great White Way. Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron talked to The Hollywood Reporter about their plan to bring the production to Broadway and answered question on whether any of the cast members of the TV version would get involved in it.
Meron said, "Right now the plan is to have The Wiz on Broadway a year from now in partnership with Cirque. The entire cast of The Wiz Live knows about the Broadway plans but we didn't make it a prerequisite when casting them. But over the past couple of weeks, a lot of members of the cast have been sniffing around doing it in the theater."
Asked if they would bring back the lead star, Shanice Williams, Meron replied, "We'd love for her to be on Broadway in The Wiz but that's to be worked out." Zadan chimed in, "Every person that was in the show last night has been invited to come to Broadway. It's a matter of if they want to and how much time they can give us." What about casting her for their next live musical production, Meron responded, "In a heartbeat."
The producers also discussed the previous production that failed to resonate with audience. "Peter Pan, as a piece, has overstayed its welcome," Zadan explained. "What we discovered, too late of course, is that people aren't interested in Peter Pan. As evidenced by the fact that the Peter Pan movie [Pan] that came out a couple months ago - that cost $150 million - disappeared after one weekend."
He continued, "Clearly, this idea of Peter Pan being a viable story right now is not the case. As a result of that, we made a mistake in choosing it and I don't think we should jump on something; we should think it through and figure out what the next choice should be in the progression of 'what do you follow The Wiz with so we can keep moving forward and not backward?' "
