Discussion Board Post #7

The intended audience of “Oz and the Musical” are people interested in learning about American musicals, such as students, educators, or the general public that loves Broadway. The genre of this piece is analytical, as in the thesis the author states that he will be analyzing four major musical adaptations of The Wizard of Oz. The author, Ryan Bunch, is a student and part-time lecturer at Rutgers University studying musicology and The Wizard of Oz, specifically. This piece was a research study for Rutgers University, therefore, Bunch seems to have a credible knowledge on the universe of Oz and is a qualified author to speak on this subject. The purpose of this text was to was to inform the audience of the different musical interpretations and variations of The Wizard of Oz, and to analyze how the conventions of musical theatre facilitate their transformations of the story, as Bunch stated in the thesis. Bunch organized this piece by going through the four major interpretations of this story in chronological order. The organization of the text in this fashion contributed to the purpose well, as the readers were able to follow this story as it grew into the worldwide phenomenon that it is today. This piece was published in 2015, which was just about 100 years after the origin of this story, and just over 10 years after the hit Broadway musical, Wicked, opened on Broadway. Therefore, majority of the work’s readers are familiar with the general story of Oz, if not the Broadway musical specifically. Because of this, the text communicated well to the audience, and Bunch was able to go really in-depth with his research. Personally, I really enjoyed this text. Wicked is my favorite musical of all-time, and I enjoyed reading about the long journey this story went on before it came to be the musical I love. While most of the prior material I was already familiar with, it was still interesting to read about. I did not learn much new information, however, some of Bunch’s arguments caused me to think about certain topics in a different way than I had before. Overall, this was a really enjoyable and informational piece of text that I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys the world of Oz. One question I have for my peers, is out of the piece’s that Bunch discussed – The Wizard of Oz (1900), The Broadway Extravaganza (1903), The MGM Film The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Wiz (1975), and Wicked (2003) – which was your favorite?