Yellow Brick Road

There was a different Ann Marie once. She was slim and outgoing, a beautiful young woman who modeled and marched with the high school drill team. Her future lay before her like a yellow brick road, and she could hardly wait to walk every glorious mile of it. That Ann Marie no longer exists. The one that lives today is a woman trapped in a child's body, a bloated, explosive, 250-pound psychiatric patient who will spend the remainder of her life in locked rooms. I told you about that Ann Marie.

Hollywood is once again off to see the wizard. In fact, it may make several trips. As Tim Burton's interpretation of "Alice in Wonderland" continues to attract audiences, film-world power brokers are looking to jump-start a number of remakes of "The Wizard of Oz" -- a close adaptation of the original novel, a prequel about the wizard and a darker tale about Dorothy's granddaughter in Oz. Two of the three are, like "Alice," stories about...

Twenty-eight years after her death, Judy Garland is still big business in her hometown, Grand Rapids, Minn., where a "Judy Jubilee" festival and a new children's museum debut this month. The jubilee, June 26 to 29, marks the 75th anniversary of the star's birth. Highlights include her former husband, producer Sid Luft, and children Lorna and Joe Luft discussing "Judy Garland: The Facts Only"; a collectors' exchange for Garland and "Wizard of Oz" memorabilia; and children's activities.

It was 70 years ago this week that "The Wizard of Oz" arrived in theaters, and even in this CGI-jaded era those old red ruby slippers still manage to sparkle. The anniversary has been celebrated over the last year with numerous events, including a national tour by a seven-story Oz-themed hot-air balloon. The festivities will continue into next month with a one-night theatrical presentation of a newly restored version of the film in 450 theaters (Sept. 23) and the release of an "ultimate collector's edition" home video package with that remastered version and 16 hours of bonus material.

The yellow brick road has never been so slippery. But Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion will have no trouble negotiating the surface when they put on their ice skates. In this twist on the classic L. Frank Baum story of a young girl's journey over the rainbow, "The Wizard of Oz on Ice" is a $9-million production touring in 32 countries on a two-year tour.

The yellow brick road may end in the Land of Oz, but a proud central New York farming village is where Dorothy and Toto began their journey to the Emerald City, in the imagination of author L. Frank Baum. The 4,205 residents of Chittenango, named by the Indians for the sparkling creek that rushes by rolling, green farmland, believe with near-religious conviction that the lush Mohawk Valley inspired its most famous son to write 19 Oz books, including the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" in 1900.

I don't think we're in Hollywood anymore, Toto. We're sure not on Broadway either, although "The Wizard of Oz in Concert" (on TNT tonight) was shot at New York's Lincoln Center. It might as well be Kansas for all the magic generated by this staged permutation of the classic 1939 film. (Net proceeds from ticket sales, advertising, etc. will go to the Children's Defense Fund organization.) It's more than a concert but not really a musical. The performers read dialogue but don't quite act .

"When I was young, my house had a magic door," writes Elmaz Abinader. "Outside that door was .... " Well, America was outside that door. Main Street, Masontown, Pa. Kids circled around on the playground and called the girl with unruly hair "darkie." But inside was America, too. Mom made hummus and baba ghannouj and pita bread and supervised the children at their chores. Outside, people spoke English, and little girls played with Barbies.

Life, John Lennon once said, is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. In that sense, at least, the presidential race is a lot like life. There's still a tendency in both parties, and much of the media, to plan as though the presidential race really begins on Labor Day, when Americans supposedly put down the suntan lotion and pick up the candidates' position papers.

Until the Royal Shakespeare Company enlisted John Kane earlier this decade to adapt "The Wizard of Oz," it was a strange phenomenon that one of the best musicals ever written, care of composer Harold Arlen and lyricist-writer E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, wasn't done onstage. (And, no, "The Wiz," that other stage version of the L. Frank Baum classic, is no substitute.) Now "Oz" is regularly onstage, yet you have to wonder whether this constitutes progress.

The Real Wizard of Oz The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum Rebecca Loncraine Gotham Books: 416 pp., $28 In contrast to the rambling text that follows, the title of this biography couldn't be more cogent. L. Frank Baum, inventor of the magical Land of Oz, does indeed strikingly resemble the fraudulent but fundamentally good-hearted Wizard who put green-colored spectacles on Dorothy, her friends and the residents of the Emerald City. Not that Baum ever cheated anyone outright, but this son of the Gilded Age was intimately familiar with the tricks and showmanship that built modern commerce, as well as the yearning for a freer, more fantastic realm beyond the harsh realities of life on the Great Plains or in America's rapidly industrializing cities.

The genre of pop standards is a bit out of bounds for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, whose high-profile collaboration excavates a more traditional sector of America's musical geography. But when the singers and their band came to the Greek Theatre on Monday, there was something of "The Wizard of Oz" about it.

Surely no American work of children's literature occupies a deeper place in the cultural heart and mind than "The Wizard of Oz": Its characters sit comfortably beside such venerable fairy-tale figures as Snow White and Jack and the Beanstalk, who seem to have been around something like forever, and not merely 107 years. Even before Judy Garland dropped a house on Munchkinland, L.

"THE Wizard of Oz," the 1939 adaptation of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," is a much-loved film classic. But the same can't be said of the 1925 silent version, screening Thursday at the Silent Movie Theatre. "There is little to love in this movie, especially considering the richness of the source material," says film historian-critic Leonard Maltin. "Those books were, as they remain, beloved by people. And back in the 1920s, they were even more in the public consciousness.

"Wicked": Toto, we're not on Broadway anymore. Powered by a cast of show-tune specialists and a $14-million budget, songwriter Stephen Schwartz's mega-musical prequel to "The Wizard of Oz" opened in fall 2003 and became Broadway's biggest hit since "The Producers." The road show approximates most of the Broadway version's gadgetry (minus a few bells and whistles). But what this production, like the original, can't do is put together a cohesive 2 1/2 hours of musical comedy.

A great American acting company returns to television tonight with "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz," a full-blown feature presentation of ABC's "The Wonderful World of Disney." (As the troupe's first major work for its new corporate parent -- they have already appeared on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" -- the title should more accurately read "Disney's ABC's The Wonderful World of Disney's Disney's Muppets' the Muppets' Wizard of Oz."

Take a road trip with kids and you'll quickly learn the three cardinal rules of mobile parenting: (1) plan plenty of divertissements, (2) vary the scene and (3) keep it short. The folks at the Orange County Children's Theatre have taken two of these lessons to heart in their production of "The Wizard of Oz." Directed by Diane Christensen, the musical continues through Sunday at the Westminster Cultural Arts Center. Working from Claude Townley's adaptation of L.

The blue and white gingham dress Judy Garland wore somewhere over the rainbow in "The Wizard of Oz" was sold for $252,000 Wednesday at a London auction. The dress, one of the most recognizable in movie history, went to a buyer bidding by telephone who did not wish to be identified, said Bonhams, the auctioneer.

As record companies scour every nook and cranny of their domains for extra sources of revenue to pump up sagging bottom lines, one bonus for music fans has been a deluge of album reissues. Most are straightforward re-releases that they hope will squeeze a few more dollars out of their catalogs, but occasionally companies are taking the time to put some real effort into these packages. Not every album warrants the extra attention, to be sure.