Wizard Of Oz Staging

To be able to move around in the world of Oz was a fun adventure. We had the yellow brick road wrapped all around our stage, this was an amazing immersive experience. However, every time we had to move around the land of Oz, we would have to move in a clockwise direction up the stairs, across and back down again. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense from a storytelling point of view, if we back tracked on ourselves, we wouldn’t be going anywhere. This was also particularly time consuming for my own character as my movement is meant to be robotic and my costume is bulkier compared to the rest of the characters. Moreover, when we were standing still we had to always be in our group, yet we also had to be able to stand out to the audience. We also had to make sure that we weren’t always standing in a line and be spread out. This is difficult when on the part of the yellow brick road that is elevated because of the size of the area and if we were stood next to each other, side by side, there is a greater chance of not being seen by the audience. The direction I was given sometimes was that when it was my line to make sure that I face out into the audience so that they could hear me more clearly. I always made sure to tell myself to move slowly at all times, not to speed myself up just to catch up to my fellow actors. As well as when I wasn’t talking I could be trying to move my arms but that they couldn’t properly, in order to stay true to my character. I wanted to create more depth to my character and keep the world alive whilst moving across the stage.