THE WIZ LIVE!
NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET
Those veteran producers of televised musical specials, Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, revived the live-TV musical genre with 2013’s The Sound of Music, then went one step backward with the much lower-rated, and less satisfying, Peter Pan last year. Tonight, they’re back to try,try again, this time with a revamped production, even with some new music, of the Tony-winning 1975 The Wiz. This new television adaptation of the colorful take on The Wizard of Oz stars a newcomer, 19-year-old Shanice Williams, as Dorothy. Co-stars include Queen Latifah as the Wiz, Uzo Aduba of Orange Is the New Black as Glinda the Good Witch, and Mary J. Blige as the Wicked Witch of the West. Playing Dorothy’s traveling companions: Ne-Yo as the Tin Man, Elijah Kelley as the Scarecrow, and David Alan Grier as the Cowardly Lion. And, worthy of the exclamation mark in the title, it’s The Wiz Live!