Adapted in a UCLA Creative Writing Workshop with ten artists incarcerated in the oldest women's prison in the state, the California Institute for Women (CIW), WHAT IT IZ: The Spoken Wordical is a Prison Abolitionist, Hip Hop Theater Remix of The Wiz.

For more than a century, audiences around the world have enjoyed the tale of the Tin Man's search for a heart, the Scarecrow's search for a brain, and the Cowardly Lion's search for courage.  This time around, Dorothy is transported from the disco era into a new millennium facing terrorism, police brutality, government corruption, music industry shenanigans, street hustlers, new world technology, and the world's largest prison population.  Meet a notoriously sexist "Platinum" rap star longing for self-love; a small-time hustler named "Smooth" whose lack of knowledge of self keeps him from being smooth enough to avoid repeat arrests for the same crime; a paranoid Black Panther wanna-be "Assata" in search of self-determination after barely surviving the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers.

In 1911, L. Frank Baum imagined a world where money didn't exist and women were all powerful.  More than 100 years later, a new generation of creative visionaries has its own fresh take on that wonderful world called Oz.  This 21st century urban parody remixes Baum's classic and the 1970s Broadway musical-turned-motion picture "The Wiz" – starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, Lena Horne, with music by Luther Vandross and Quincy Jones.  The film inspired the writing of this play as much as the Broadway hit before it, which featured Stephanie Mills, André De Shields and Phylicia Rashad.  The early stages of WHAT IT IZ included developmental stages at the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe and American Place Theater in New York City, the Longwharf Theater and Yale Theater in New Haven, and workshops and performances at Harvard University.  The west coast premiere sold out during its first weekend in Spring 2017 at the Los Angelees Theatre Center (LATC) in downtown Los Angeles.

WHAT IT IZ fuses the soulful, musical style of the '70s hit with the urban lyricism of hip hop and spoken word poetry.  Critics compare the show to the Tony Award-winning "Def Poetry Jam on Broadway" and "Hamilton" which have introduced traditional theater goers to the adrenalin-injected idioms of hip hop and spoken word.  

 

Directed by the creator and performer of the Harry Belafonte produced "Lyrics From Lockdown," critically acclaimed poet, actor and prison activist Bryonn Bain, and written in the verse of our time by a group comprised of formerly and currently incarcerated artists, Blackout Arts Collective (BAC) is the grassroots arts/activism coalition responsible for the early development of the show while bringing performances and workshops to prisons in 25 states nationwide.

 

An award-winning network of artists, activists, and educators, BAC has used the arts and culture to catalyze action around critical issues in innovative ways to inspire social change since 1997.  Dramaturgy by Disney fellow and NYU drama professor Michael Dinwiddie, and Lincoln Center dynamo Imani Douglas, this production pays homage to a timeless classic while providing a launchpad for dialogue and action around the mass incarceration and its impact on our communities with beats, rhymes and comedy.