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CTC Family Guide 
The Wizard of Oz Family Guide 
A detailed description of the play, including things to do and think about, for parents to share with their families.
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A Synopsis of the Story
Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are running from that wicked witch, Miss Almira Gultch. Miss Gultch says Toto bit her, and she’ll have him taken away once and for all. Dorothy is counting on Auntie Em and Uncle Henry to stop her. When Dorothy gets home, though, her aunt and uncle are busy saving chicks. No time to listen. The hired hands are busy fixing a wagon and can’t listen much either. “Find yourself a place where you won’t get into any trouble,” Aunt Em says to Dorothy, and so she does...if only in her imagination,a place far away, somewhere over the rainbow.
Dorothy’s daydreaming is interrupted by the arrival of Miss Gulch on her bicycle. The spiteful woman takes Toto away in a basket and leaves the whole family heart-sore. There’s a lot of work to be done, though, and no time to stew. There’s a storm brewing. Dorothy hears a familiar bark and realizes Toto has escaped, and she will too. She packs a picture of Aunt Em and a plate of cookies and is out the back door. On the road Dorothy comes upon a painted wagon. The lettering on the side says, “Professor Marvel...Let him read in his Crystal your Past Present and Future.” He can tell she’s running away, and by the time he’s consulted his crystal ball and found Aunt Em crying by the picket fence Dorothy runs right back home. But that’s when the tornado hits.
Dorothy gets caught in the house, the cyclone lifts her up, into the eye of the storm, and she watches the world fly by her bedroom window. By the time the little farmhouse lands with a thud, she has traveled far away for sure. She’s not in Kansas anymore. She’s in Oz.
She is greeted by Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. Dorothy has heroically - if inadvertently - killed the Wicked Witch of the East by dropping the house on top of her and smashing her flat. The Munchkins are thrilled, and they offer her all manner of frippery and flattery. They also offer her directions to the Emerald City after a visit from the Wicked Witch of the West who is enraged that Dorothy has killed her sister (or is she simply enraged because she can’t get the ruby slippers?). She vows to get Dorothy and her little dog, too! It’s urgent Dorothy get home as soon as possible and so off she goes to follow the yellow brick road.
It isn’t long before she meets a Scarecrow who has amazing good sense for having a head full of straw, but what he wants more than anything is a brain. He decides to accompany her to see the Wizard, and they’re off. The two run across a stand of apple trees. Dorothy is hungry, but the only way the two travelers get apples is when the trees throw them at them in anger. Behind the trees they discover a Tinman rusted in a yard. They oil him up and hear his story of lost love. He wants a heart again, and the Wizard could give him one. He joins Dorothy and the Scarecrow on their journey, and so now they are three.
The Wicked Witch threatens the three friends. She throws fire at the Scarecrow, which makes them all the more determined to see the Wizard - even if they have to face lions and tigers and bears. They face one right away. A Lion scares the bejeebers out of them, until he chases Toto and Dorothy smacks him on the nose. He breaks down in tears, the big old softy. He wants courage more than anything. And now they are four.
As they come within sight of the Emerald City the Wicked Witch arranges a nasty trap. She works a sleeping spell with a field of poppies where Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion fall asleep one by one. The Scarecrow and the Tinman are distraught and call on Glinda for help. She blankets the poppies with lovely snow and frees the friends. Emerald City is just over the hill.
Once inside the city they are treated grandly and prepared for their visit to the Wizard. But the visit is a disappointment. All their fear and trembling gets them is an impossible assignment. They can have what they want only if they bring the Wizard the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West. There is no choice in the matter. The friends set their course due west toward the land of the Winkies.
In her castle the Wicked Witch is still plotting to wreak havoc on Dorothy. She decides to send her flying monkeys, to capture the Dorothy and Toto. First she will exhaust the four with her Jitterbug, and then they should be easy to separate. Dorothy is taken, the Scarecrow is torn apart, and the Tinman and the Lion are left to pick up the pieces.
The Wicked Witch demands the ruby slippers. If Dorothy doesn’t turn them over, the Witch will eat Toto - her idea of a joke - or simply drown him in the “raging roaring river.” Dorothy agrees gladly for Toto’s sake, but Toto escapes instead. The Witch is incensed! She decides to kill Dorothy, but wants to devise a suitably horrible death. Left alone, Dorothy sees Auntie Em in the Witch’s crystal ball, and longs for home.
The Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Lion devise a rescue plan. They dress as Winkie soldiers and follow Toto into the castle. They find Dorothy, but the Witch finds them. She dips her broom in fire and approaches the Scarecrow. Dorothy can’t stand it, and she tosses a pail of water on the Witch to dash the flame. Amazingly, it utterly destroys the Witch. The Winkies are thrilled, and give Dorothy the broom she needs. Back at the Wizard’s, the sought after gifts are at last bestowed, although not in the way the friends expected. The Wizard after all is a bad Wizard, but he’s a good man. He even attempts to take Dorothy back to Kansas in his hot air balloon, but fails. She has to get home of her own accord. And she does, as we knew she would.
Back home everyone looks so wonderfully familiar, just the same and so precious and dear, yet perhaps more dear than ever, after all. Somehow after being so far away it is crystal clear to Dorothy that there’s no place like home.
| AS YOU GET READY TO SEE THE SHOW |
 The Wizard of Oz is a very special story. It is profound. It goes so deep into us. It flies us so high. It scares and soothes us. It makes us laugh and cry. For some of us it’s hard to remember the time before we knew the story. (It was published in 1900, by the way, and the film came out in 1939.)
A critic in 1919 said that The Wizard of Oz was, “the first distinctive attempt to construct a fairyland out of American materials.” Dorothy is an ordinary, down-to-earth Kansas farm girl who is transformed in Oz. She recognizes her sources of strength and embraces them. It is a story about the power of love and the wonder of technology.The American fascination with mechanical skill show up in the Tinman. The Wizard is reliant on technology for his effects. Yet set alongside them is the Cyclone, the sheer power of nature. Deeply embedded in the story is the very American belief that a good person need look no farther than themselves in order to find happiness.
Many people have tried to explain why the story is so remarkable. Everyone has a very personal opinion. What do you think? |
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| TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION |
If you were to be whisked away by a tornado, do you have a pet that you would take with you? Is there something or someone else you would take with you instead?
Dorothy imagines a beautiful city of green - which makes sense for a Kansas farm girl. If you were to imagine the most beautiful city what color would you make it? Describe it to somebody and then imagine the details together.
What quality...like courage, brains, heart, would you most like to have? Are you sure you don’t already have it? |
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