Two Voices, One Memory: A Review Of We're Doing The Wiz from Radiotopia
It's the Back To School edition...why my review comes in September not June, when the series launched at Tribeca
We’re Doing The Wiz is part confessional, part musical and part deeply (at times painful) introspective look at a fraught high school memory, 20 years on.
Co-hosts Ian Coss and Sakina Ibrahim went to the same performing arts high school (PVPA) and both participated in production of The Wiz. This is their story, and their memory of their story, and also the story of their memory. It’s packed with revelations and reckonings, told through a purposeful chronology that doubles as anti-oppression framework, both of which help balance the two sides of the story.
We’re Doing The Wiz is the latest installment from the prestige series Radiotopia Presents was released last June to coincide with its 2025 Official Selection of Tribeca Festival. The mark of Tribeca carries weight: more than a festival placement, it’s an imprimatur that signals credibility and reach. And while I also appreciate the launch window, June is just not when I’m thinking about school. I’m going the opposite direction, walking out those doors and not looking back (as I conjure my teenage brain). So I held off listening to it until September, the return to school.
The series travels back in time to explore how a performing arts high school in rural Massachusetts attempted to course correct from a disastrous “impersonation” assignment—that ended with protests, angry parents and a TV news crew stationed outside the school—after someone (unidentified) wore a white cape in the style of a Klansmen to school. That’s the subtext of this series; lest we allow our memories to concede that we were higher evolved at the dawn of this new century.
Follow that tread back
On the surface, you see an experimental school (a few different out-buildings, cobbled together between a district courthouse, a repurposed school and a donut shop) that opened its doors in the early 2000s. There were no school busses. It didn’t have a gym, or a cafeteria, or many of the other 'normal’ high school things.
What it did have was a bunch of talented musical-theatre-types. The kind of student who relished the opportunity to get a non-mainstream education and who didn’t mind the excuse for a full five-minute walk across a parking lot between classes. At least one of the students identified in the series said the school “saved” her.
A few years after opening, the school began a new bussing program. Now a new cohort of Black students arrived by bus from nearby Springfield, MA, a town, as we are reminded by the series, that’s on the other side of the Tofu Curtain—a term that is self-explanatory both for its colour and the isle of the health food store you buy it in.
Does a bus define a school? Apparently it can.
The conversation between co-hosts Coss and Ibrahim that kicked off the series allows their discomfort to be palpable. Him trying to make space, her trying to determine just how much space was available. Perhaps this was the point they wanted to convey. Many parts of this series comes with a wince and squint; but each one was treated with care and concern, purpose and reason. Without this careful watch, this series could have spilled into a very different territory.
Discomfort is common for many people when reflecting back at highschool, 10 or 20 years later. But that’s not the accurate squirm this series is looking to evoke. If you miss the whole racialized angle to this story, you’ve passed the important learning moment by. A mostly white high school doing a solidly Black story? How did that really go down?
The tone of Coss’ voice prepares you for the idea that he procrastinated this call—for decades. But you don’t hear the original “I’ve got an idea for you” call. Instead, the series opens with what might have been a check-in moment, a frank conversation, which perhaps came much later, and then became the entire framework for the series. This decision because showed that a lot had already happened before we get to listen:
[Coss]: So, you know, we've talked to a few people at this point. If you just had to imagine the first minute of the show right now, how do you think the story should start?
[Ibrahim]: I actually hear your voice talking about you having like an introspective reflection of high school.
[Coss] Okay…
That was the invitation he needed to begin a wander down the halls and into his memory of high school, seen through his eyes and his memory. He goes on to say that unlike the fictional television show (which I adored and devoured), their school didn’t look out onto Lincoln Centre, the place that all the fictional protogées dreamed of performing in one day…rather his school was in a small-town in Western Massachusetts, and looked out onto a donut shop. All of this description made it more clear just how much of an experiment this whole school was.
At PVPA (and any performing arts high school) the most defining part of every year—which directly increases in importance towards Senior year when you stood a better chance of scoring a lead role—was the annual high school musical. The ability to build an entire series around a dramatic production that only lasted a few months, for a few people, feels real. We now understand that this was the entire universe of this school.
The way Coss begins the episode, which we see becomes a theme throughout, is both uniquely subtle and obtusely direct: Coss asks permission to frame the story, to define the initial terms, of what this story is going to be. It’s an intentional way to set the stage, to stick with the metaphor, for a story which will be told one way, which will then be dismantled, and told another way. Coss sets the stage, and then Ibrahim strikes the set. She almost functions as a dramaturge to make sure the audience gets the point.
Each episode of We’re Doing The Wiz seemed to dovetail a conversation like this: now that we’ve made one episode, now we’re getting to the end…now that we’re at the end of the series, and the show has happened…it recreated a chronology of events.
Episode 2 opens with Ibrahim hitting the nail on the head: the question that loomed large for her was: Who would get to tell this story?
The answer is: two voices, and two viewpoints, told at once. It’s an experiment that mostly succeeds; especially if you consider tense moments as the defining feature of double-voiced narration.
This moment-by-moment storytelling mode gave it the gravitas of a deposition and allowed the challenging emotions to hang out in a moment in time, rather than be stacked on the surface of memory and emotion. It was a smart choice, and a helpful framework to build on.
I appreciated that the series also spent a good amount of time deconstructing the inciting incident—the assignment—which then exposed the obvious cracks in the racial divides of this school. This is not an easy conversation to have, from any angle, at any time.
Ibrahim opens the second episode with a story of her family’s close connection to what the KKK actually did to humans. In honour of her ancestors, one of whom was killed, she opens the story for a second time:
[Ibrahim]: “All I knew was Springfield, a place where we walked to the local Jamaican restaurant to get a $4 snack pack of curry chicken and rice, where I'd have friends over for dance sessions. And yeah, from the outside looking in, us kids may not have had a lot of material things, but what we did have was loyalty and respect. We had each other.
At PVPA, I had none of that.
Imagine walking into school and feeling hated. The strange looks. Being ignored when you say good morning to your classmates.
How guarded that can make an already hormonal and confused teenager feel.
So, soon after transferring to this new school, there was that emergency assembly the school organized to talk about race. I wasn't interested in participating. I sat in the back of the auditorium with my sunglasses on.
You know, I felt like it wasn't my problem. I was there to chase my own dreams, not to pick up the pieces of a mess I didn't create.
But when PVPA announced it was doing The Wiz, my feelings were different. Now this was a story I can relate to. And auditions were just around the corner.”
Ibrahim reminds us that that costume, the uncomfortable event, was not just a story, but instead related to her on a close and personal level. Some things need to be underlined. But for her, she also took this as an opening.
By the end, the hot potato went back and forth enough times that it felt more like Ibrahim’s story, and less like Coss’. The question that’s left completely off camera is: What happened to this school next? Did it continue to embellish all disciplines of the African American theatre theme, or was this a one-and-done? That question is left unanswered.
This series attempts to wade into the very uncomfortable waters of the “why”
This school made this decision, to perform The Wiz that year as the school production. This choice was a departure from previous years: Guys n’ Dolls, Hair, Les Miserables… all shows that, if tradition is followed, offer legions of parts to the white students.
The choice of The Wiz was an obvious course correct. It’s based on the 1978 film that was adapted from the 1974 Broadway musical The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, where the entire story was reimagined a Dorothy being a school teacher in Harlem who is whisked away to Oz after she tries to save her dog from a storm. In the film, Diana Ross played Dorothy, Richard Pryor played The Wiz, Michael Jackson played the scarecrow; it’s stacked with legends and it’s beloved by the African American community. The fact that the story is a re-telling of a classic American story makes it even more potent.
As I listened, I wondered to myself: What has changed? Where are we at now, 20 years later, when it comes to these sorts of decisions: what it meant—politically, socially, culturally—to mount a play that was very much the Black retelling of The Wizard of Oz. But then things opened up for me in Episode 3. Coss and Ibrahim approached the idea, fact-checked through memories, that no one sat these high school kids down to discuss the broader meaning of this play, the legacy and the history of this show.
So that meant that many of these kids showed up with the Judy Garland’s version of the characters…the scarecrow, the lion…who have dialogue that’s less Judy and more 1970s Black vernacular…done by a mixed group of teenage kids, without much guidance around how to do this. The outcome might have been imperfect, but, as the series points out, it also opened doors and cultural pathways for some kids to explore in the future.
Let this series be a reminder to have that difficult conversation.
Today, in many school districts (though certainly not all), the difficult conversation has begun. In the public school district that I live in, the compulsory Grade 11 English Language is not called English any longer. It’s called Understanding Contemporary First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Voices. In this course, they read novels and plays in English, watch films and visit relevant sites to discuss Truth and Reconciliation. It’s a reminder that education need to make big, loud and obvious choices on the path towards changing the mindset and unlearning history.
Two endings, one story
Everything made sense until we get to the end of the story, or rather Coss’ end of the story. He wanted to revisit the other defining end to High School: Prom. This is where we hear from Brittany, who played the role of Adam Pearl in the production. We learn that Brittany had asked Ian to prom, and he turned her down. He told her he was going stag, instead. Rather go alone than take Brittany. It’s an odd and awkward memory to revisit…and other than the fact that they were both in the production and both part of the podcast series, that’s about the extent of their connection.
In a way, the series could have started here: with the remorse and discomfort Coss felt about this teenage interaction, that on one hand was stupid innocence, but on another level, points to the reason why The Wiz was mounted as the final show that year. So why use it at the end?
It gave me the impression that Coss needed to cleanse that memory, to repair this long ago moment where he wasn’t his best self, to highlight just how far apart the white kids and the Black kids were at that school back then. If this came at the beginning, the entire show would have been framed around him, rather than a shared memory.
In the final episode we go and visit to Brittany and her kids. It’s all friendly and stuff; but the tones of regret and remorse are not far below the surface. I feel empathy for both of them; her having to go back to this moment and for him to have the courage to bring it up again.
In a way, although this wasn’t his role in the original production, here, Ian Coss plays the part of The Cowardly Lion perfectly. His journey was to seek the courage to tell this story.
Ibrahim had a different ending to the story. Where Coss was looking inward, she looked outward, and then a long way into the future. In this telling of the story, she’s definitely the Dorothy, there to lead us from one world to the next.
Ibrahim is now a teacher herself, at an art school in Orange County, California. Her reconnection with Coss made her realize that she should also commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Wiz in 2024 and get a production underway with her students.
But at her school, she faced a different challenge. In Massachusetts, it was a mostly-white high school; now in California, she’s at a mostly Hispanic school…both, she pointed out, were equally as unfamiliar with the import and nuance of The Wiz. She hired a Black director and a Black choreographer to come into and help with the production, to help these kids bridge these cultural divides, but they left after the first rehearsal. They both declined to participate, which Ibrahim explained was in part because they felt it was problematic for them to mount this show at that school. Twenty years after this show hit PVPA, some of the same questions appear.
But Ibrahim has a different version of the future:
[Ibrahim]: I understood where they were coming from. I mean, The Wiz is sacred for Black people. But my perspective is a little different. So we parted ways, and the show went on without them.
…[Ibrahim]: When I was at PVPA, it never occurred to me that we shouldn't do this show. I felt like they were doing this show for us, that there was a group of talented Black kids from Springfield at a white school, and we now had an opportunity to share that talent. We know the origins of this show.
We know why it exists. We know that the song, Brand New Day, is about the emancipation from slavery. If you've done your work, you should know.
But what also has to be at the table is the Wiz is a great piece of American art.
The end.
Did we need two endings to the story? With two narrators, the answer seems to be yes.