Incorporating original music, masks, movement, and large scale puppetry, Obie award-winning director and designer James Ortiz (The Woodsman) premieres a new work based on the forgotten writings of L. Frank Baum, author of the classic “OZ” series of books, to create a fable for our times.
The Winged Monkeys from L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) are firmly lodged in our minds as the fodder of many childhood nightmares thanks in great part to the famous 1939 Judy Garland movie. However, this play, adapted from Baum’s original Oz books, tells the story of how these noble creatures, with a rich history of their own, were drawn into slavery, driven from their homelands, and used for the whims of their owners. It is an eerily familiar story to anyone who studies history.
