The Man Behind the Curtain: The Creation of the Land of Oz

The Onondaga Historical Association will host a one man performance of THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, written and performed by J.D. Newman. The play follows of the creation of THE LAND OF OZ and the memorable characters Dorothy, the Scare Crow, the Tin Man, the Lion, and Toto as originally conceived by author L. Frank Baum. The piece also details the personal journey of Baum, a native New Yorker and author, as he finds his way in the world, receives encouragement from his mother-in-law, suffragette Matilda Joslyn Gage, and enjoys commercial success with “THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ.”

The performance will be on Saturday, October 29^th, at 1:00pm at OHA’s Auditorium at 321 Montgomery Street, Syracuse, NY and will last approximately 90 minutes.

Admission is free for OHA Members and $5.00 for the general public. Seating is limited. For reservations, call Karen 428 1864 x 312. 

D. Newman, who has recently been playwright in residence at The Open Eye Theater in Margaretville N.Y., is a Professor of Theater at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah and is the director of UVU’s Noorda Theatre Center for Children and Youth. He taught and directed theatre at Highland High School in Salt Lake City for eighteen years and was Artistic Director of the Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts. He earned his Masters Degree from the University of Texas and his Ph.D. from New York University. Dr. Newman is co-editor of the anthology Tell Your Story: The Plays and Playwriting of Sandra Fenichel Asher, which includes plays that premiered at the Open Eye. His play The Secret School, adapted from the novel by Avi, was presented by the Open Eye in 2007 and is now published by Dramatic Publishing.

He co-directed the Open Eye’s summer camp in 2008 during which he directed his play The End of Oz that started his research into the life of L. Frank Baum. In 2010, he adapted Richard Peck’s Newbery Medal Novel, A Year Down Yonder, for the Open Eye’s main season. While in Margaretville, he performed Vincent, a one-man play about Vincent Van Gogh written by Leonard Nimoy. . During his residency at the Open Eye, he just completed a run of his original one-man play The Man Behind the Curtain , as L. Frank Baum and directed his adaptation of Sandy and the Weird Sisters.