Into the Balloon!

Wizard of Oz 2012 featured my son as the Wizard and Katie Caldwell as Dorothy.  The amazing Toto that year was , and I will correct this if I am wrong, Daykota Sweat.

Wizard of Oz 2011 featured myself as the Wizard, Sydney Shields as Dorothy, Marin Jeffords as a wonderful Toto, and Blake Roberson as the Scarecrow.



This brief post is a tribute to the most amazing prop I've ever had to deal with onstage, the balloon in the Wizard of Oz.  It was a converted appliance box, and you can see the year I did it it was wrapped in a sheet striped in different shades of green.  To float off in it, I had to grab from the inside flaps and pull it along with mew.  If the audience looked carefully, when I pulled it up to move, the audience could see my feet, like it was a Flintstones car.

The following year my son was the Wizard and the balloon  which I believe was the same appliance box, was now covered in red, white and blue, and had a cardboard sign behind it that said State Fair.  It was also foot powered.  It was the year I directed, and it was the hardest thing in the world to get that scene right.

Wizard of Oz 2013, performed on a smaller stage, had the  Wizard stand on a small platform, and just sort of fade behind the curtain when it was time to fly off.

The recent Oz movie had a more dramatic balloon (well, they also had a budget in excess of a hundred million dollars), but it is not much more successful.  It gets trapped in the tornado fairly quickly, busts up in a swamp, and is later shot down by a witch.

Props can be aggravating.  But they can also be fun and lead to many special memories

Oz balloon!  I salute you!.