The list of musical numbers is taken from the actual broadcast and are in order as they appear in the broadcast and include the characters' names who perform the song.
"The Feeling We Once Had" – Aunt Em and Ensemble
"Tornado" – Company
"He's the Wizard" – Addaperle, Dorothy, and Munchkins
All numbers composed by Charlie Smalls save for the following: "Tornado" is composed by Timothy Graphenreed andHarold Wheeler. "Emerald City Ballet (Psst)" is composed by Graphenreed andGeorge Faison. "We Got It" is written by Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley, Harvey Mason Jr, and Stephen Oremus.[6] "Everybody Rejoice/A Brand New Day" is written byLuther Vandross.
The special was directed byKenny Leon and adapted for television byHarvey Fierstein from the original musical's book byWilliam F. Brown.Fatima Robinson was the program's choreographer, withHarvey Mason, Jr. andStephen Oremus serving as the musical directors.[11] Songs from the original Broadway production were featured, with two exceptions: "You Can't Win", a song cut from the musical and first used inthe 1978 feature film adaptation as sung byMichael Jackson (used in place of Scarecrow's "I Was Born on the Day Before Yesterday" number), and the new song "We Got It",[6] composed by Harvey Mason Jr., Stephen Oremus with stars Ne-Yo and Elijah Kelley, performed as Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion begin their quest to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West.[2]
The Wiz Live! was the first live TV program in US history to containaudio description for blind or visually impaired viewers.[12]
The cost of a 30-second commercial duringThe Wiz ranged between $330,000 to $350,000, marking a drop from the $345,000 to $400,000 cost of ad time duringPeter Pan Live!. The decrease in ad cost was attributed to the modest viewership ofPeter Pan in comparison toThe Sound of Music Live!, which an analyst felt was a result of the reduced novelty of the production in comparison toThe Sound of Music.Reddi-wip served as a main sponsor of the presentation;Walmart, which served as a major sponsor of NBC's previous live musicals, declined to participate. NBC produced themed commercials to air throughout the special as part of the brand's "Share the Joy" campaign; one, which was timed to air after the corresponding scene in the musical, featured "A Brand New Day" being performed by students of the Excel Academy inHyattsville, Maryland—a school whichConAgra Foods had donated money to in support of musical arts.[13][14][15][16][17]
The Wiz Live! received positive reviews from critics, who praised the acting and singing abilities of the cast and for being an improvement over the two previous live NBC musicals. OnRotten Tomatoes, the show has a 91% rating, based on 33 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The site's consensus states: "The Wiz Live! is several notches above NBC's other musical broadcasts thanks to bold performances and large-scale production pieces."[18]Metacritic reports a weighted average of 73 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[19]
The Wiz Live! was seen by 11.5 million viewers, with a 3.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic. Although higher thanPeter Pan Live!, it trailed aThursday Night Football game onCBS between theDetroit Lions andGreen Bay Packers, which was seen by around 17 million.[20][21] Average household viewership was notably higher in markets with a large African-American population, such asAtlanta,Baltimore,Norfolk,Richmond, andWashington, D.C.[21] Nielsen also reported that the special produced the most social network interactions of any live television event in the past four years; there were three times as many Twitter postings related toThe Wiz Live! than there were related toPeter Pan Live!.[21] NBC rebroadcast the special on December 19, 2015.[22] The rebroadcast was seen by 1.6 million viewers.[23]
Bob Muller, Emmett Loughran, Miguel Armstrong, Rob Balton, Manny Gutierrez, Shaun Harkins, Jeff Latonero, Jay Millard, Jimmy O'Donnell, David A. Smith, Claus Stuhlweissenburg, Ron Washburn, Mark Whitman, William Steinberg and JC Castro
^Ne-Yo (actor) (November 25, 2015)."The Wiz LIVE!" Cast! (live television interview). RetrievedDecember 29, 2015.This is a kind of blend of the Broadway musical and the movie, so it's like both of them combined.
