The first musical adaptation of The Wizard of Oz opened Jan. 21, 1903, on Broadway. Novelist L. Frank Baum had asked his friend Paul Tietjens (a composer) to help him bring his book to the stage. They completed the script and score in 1901 and submitted them to theater manager Fred R. Hamlin, who then approached Julian Mitchell to direct. Mitchell brought in A. Baldwin Sloane (and others) to contribute new songs and writer Glen MacDonough to rework the script and lyrics. Baum was anxious, but he trusted Mitchell’s experience. The show began its out-of-town tryout at the Chicago Grand Opera House on June 16, 1902, and moved to New York’s Majestic Theatre at Columbus Circle in January, where it was a success, running 293 performances on Broadway, followed by numerous tours and a revival in 1904.
Mitchell’s team introduced several new characters and incidents, while deleting the Wicked Witch of the West entirely. Among the new roles were the cow Imogene (replacing Toto as Dorothy’s companion), King Pastoria II, waitress Tryxie Tryffle, lunatic Cynthia Cynch, and poet Sir Dashemoff Daily. This version also introduced two lasting revisions. It gave Dorothy the last name Gale, later mentioned in Baum’s novel Ozma of Oz (1907), and introduced the snowfall the Good Witch of the North uses to break the sleeping spell of the poppies, later used in the 1939 film version. Below is Oz enthusiast Bill Campbell’s edited recreation of the production, using a toy theater he designed based on the original script and photos, accompanied by songs from the original score.
The original cast included Anna Laughlin (Dorothy), Fred A. Stone (Scarecrow), David C. Montgomery (Tin Man, aka Nick Chopper), Arthur Hill (Cowardly Lion), Edwin J. Stone (Imogene), Edith Hutchins (Witch of the North), and Bobby Gaylor (Oz), as well as Helen Byron (Cynthia Cynch), Bessie Wynn (Sir Dashemoff Daily), Gilbert Clayton (King Pastoria II), and Grace Kimball (Tryxie Tryffle). Below are some original photos and artwork from the 1903 production, accompanied by selections of the original score performed by Arthur Pryor’s Band.