Whilst The Wizard of Oz waits until December to begin rehearsals with Danielle Hope as Dorothy, the public’s eventual favourite, an interesting picture is building up of the various activities from news surfacing from the rest of the Over The Rainbow Contestants.

Sophie Evans

Sophie Evans, the runner up to Danielle will be Dorothy after all, she gets to play understudy for Danielle Hope’s holidays and also every Tuesday night at The London Palladium. Sophie has had some high profile appearances in Wales, particularly when the alternate Dorothy role was announced at the Cardiff Millennium Centre, at the big weekend festival in Pontypridd and helping to promote a new ice cream venture for the valleys.

Sophie Evans Will be Alternate Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz

Lauren Samuels

Lauren Samuels who came third, was the first Dorothy to appear on the West End Stage as a leading lady when she snagged the lead role as Sandy in Grease and she’s been working hard at it every night and twice on Saturdays since July. Well done Lauren!

Lauren Samuels in Grease

Steph Fearon

Steph Fearon rushed straight into a London theatre role in Smokey Joe’s Cafe at the tiny Landor Theatre off West End in South London. The show and Steph have met with much critical approval and there’s a good chance it will transfer sometime after finishing this week. Meanwhile Steph is going to be in “Wizz” a kind of motown version of “The Wizard of Oz” in Milton Keynes.

Stephanie Davis

Stephanie Davis was offered some musicals but chose to take up a regular part on Channel Four TV as a new character in Hollyoaks, her favourite TV soap. Stephanie plays 15-year-old Sinead on Hollyoaks, part of a new family called the O’Connors.

Jessica Robinson

Jessica Robinson was called up to stand in for Steph Fearon in Smokey Joe’s Cafe for a few nights while Steph had an operation on her hand. Jessica has also moved down to London and will be attending the Arts Educational School alongside Danielle Hope and Sophie Eveans.

Jenny Douglas

Jenny Douglas will be playing the prestigious part of ‘Meat’ in the touring version of ‘We Will Rock You‘

Dani Rayner

will be playing Jasmine in Aladdin at the Liverpool Empire this Christmas! With Pamela Anderson and Les Dennis. 10th December-2nd January.

Amy Diamond

Amy Diamond has been cast in The Drowsy Chaperone so that’s another Dorothy in London, although not quite the West End.

Danielle Hope

While Danielle Hope waits to begin rehearsals for The Wizard of Oz in December, there is little else to report. She’s done a few chat show interviews and that kind of thing, finished off her exams, and has been going to see a lot of London theatre shows.

Danielle Hope is Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz

And Google has a special google logo thing on their search page just for Wizard of Oz

Google – Wizard of Oz

Who would have thought that the film was that old? According to the Internet Movie Database ( IMDB) The Wizard of Oz was released on 25 August 1939 (USA) but I’m sure Google has a good reason for celebrating early. Ah yes, the premiere was in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin on the 12th August 1939, so that’s the day to celebrate a birthday in Oz.

In a BBC interview, Tim Rice revealed that he would “likely” collaborate with Lloyd Webber on new songs he is writing for the production. The Rice and Webber team has previously produced ‘Evita’, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, and ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ amongst others

‘The WIzard of Oz ’ will debut at the London Palladium in early 2011

So whilst Over the Rainbow could well have signalled the end of the partnership between Andrew Lloyd Webber and the BBC, the resulting production of The Wizard of Oz is likely to mark the start of a renewed collaboration between the composer and lyricist Tim Rice. Rice and Lloyd Webber had big hits in the 1960s and 1970s with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. In a recent BBC Radio 2 interview, Rice said the pair are likely to reunite for The Wizard of Oz, for which Lloyd Webber is writing four new songs. The production starts performances at the London Palladium on 7 February 2011.

Andrew Lloyd Webber with Tim Rice

Here’s Rachel Tucker singing “The Wizard and I” at the “West End Live 2010″ festival in London’s Leicester Square last weekend:

Wow!

Rachel Tucker – The Wizard and I

And here’s the backstage interview conducted by Keith Martin of Leicester Square TV with Rachel Tucker of Wicked herself:

In the interview, Rachel Tucker describes how Wicked is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. Loosely based on the Wizard of Oz Wicked has a kind of twist to it. It’s the story of how the good witch and the bad witch became enemies, so Dorothy has nothing really to do with it. It’s an amazing moral story highly relevant to anybody who has ever been bullied or discriminated against just for being different.

Drew Barrymore

Barrymore has been developing the project for years, and at one point appeared set to play Dorothy’s great-great-granddaughter, who learns to use the ruby slippers’ power when the Wicked Witch unexpectedly returns to take over Oz and the earth. It’s unclear if Barrymore will still take the role or just direct.

Now “Surrender Dorothy” is just one out of five “Oz” films that have been reported as being in development recently, following the big box-office success of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.”

Possible films include “Oz the Great and Powerful,” a Disney project that would show how the Wizard came to Oz. There may also be a film version of “Wicked“, the musical prequel to Wizard of Oz. Wicked the musical has been fabulously successful on Broadway and in the London West End.

From June 1st Wales’ leading amateur theatre company, Orbit, celebrates its 41st year with the opening night of a week-long run of its own version of The Wizard of Oz at the New Theatre in Cardiff.

Dorothy is sung by Nicola Caldwell and the Wales Online reporter Dave Owens spoke to her about the role:

Nicola Caldwell:

I’m 22 years old, I come from Penarth and I’ve just qualified from university as a primary school teacher.
Probably the biggest role I’ve done is Les Miserables in London’s West End for the 20th anniversary, which was fantastic. They chose 3,000 kids under 18 to apply, I was 17 at the time, and had done a school edition of the show. Out of the 3,000 who auditioned and sent tapes off, 35 got in. And I was one of the lucky ones!

It’s every little girl’s dream, to play Dorothy, isn’t it, to wear the red ruby slippers and sing Over The Rainbow? It’s such an honour. It’s the archetypal dream role.

On the runner-up, Welsh girl Sophie Evans, and the winner, Danielle Hope?

Nicola:

Actually I liked the girl who finished third, Lauren Samuels. She was my favourite. She was really bubbly and very magnanimous and gracious when she went out.

The Wizard of Oz is showing at the New Theatre in Cardiff from 1st 5th June

Orbit Theatre

Wizard of Oz – Orbit Theatre Company

By L. FRANK BAUM
With Music and Lyrics of the MGM motion picture score
by HAROLD ARLEN and E.Y. HARBURG
Background Music by HERBERT STOTHART
Book Adaptation by JOHN KANE from the motion picture screenplay

Tuesday 1st to Saturday 5th June 2010
New Theatre
Park Place
Cardiff

Book Online via The New Theatre, Cardiff

Danielle is not guaranteed to play the following performances of Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium on:

Tuesdays.

The winner’s annual holidays have also been reserved as:

Week commencing 2nd May 2011
Week commencing 5th September 2011
Week commencing 12th September 2011

Of course nothing can really be guaranteed and in the event of illness etc the part of Dorothy will be played by an understudy but if you want the best possible chance of seeing Danielle Hope in the role then avoid booking Wizard f of Oz tickets or theatre breaks for a Tuesday or those three weeks in May and September next year.

Danielle Hope

One of the recent missions was about maintaining the Kansas accent and here you can see each of four contestants in a scene from Wizard of Oz that allows us to really evaluate their abilities as actors.

Now Andrew Lloyd Webber seemed to be bowled over by Danielle, so we get a clue here perhaps as to who he would like to see the public vote for tonight, but he also praises Lauren’s professionalism and wonders if she can pull out just a little bit more from inside her own emotion for us. Personally, I found the Danielle performance just a tad drawn out and over done, but there’s no doubt she would make a smashing Dorothy, as would any of them really.

Over the rainbow – Mission

After watching them each have a go at the real acting, who do you think comes out of this mission in the best position for tonight’s vote?

On Saturday 22nd May, the winning Dorothy will be finally chosen by Over The Rainbow viewers, and now it has been announced that the lucky Dorothy, as well as going on to play the part in The Wizard of Oz when it opens in London next April, will also get to release a single of the iconic ‘Over The Rainbow’ song, as first sung by Judy Garland in the 1939 film.

Wizard of oz

The charity single will be rushed out as a download available from midnight on Sunday 23rd May and all profits net of agreed expenses will be split fifty-fifty between two favoured charities of the TV show’s producers, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and the BBC: Prostate UK and The BBC Performing Arts Fund.

But the big question remains, whose voice will be singing “Over The Rainbow” on the charity single – will it be Lauren, Sophie or Danielle?

On Sunday night’s Over The Rainbow, Sierra Boggess performed the title song from the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Love Never Dies

Sierra Boggess