It’s a strange-but-true reality, and no ruby-slippered shoe-clicking can change it. There is currently a generation of young people who know the songs and characters of the hit musical Wicked a whole lot better than they know those from The Wizard of Oz.
Given that the wily wizard is basically a good person in that last one, but a villainous fascist dictator in the other one, Bay Area actor David Yen agrees that the kids who will be coming to see the Mountain Play’s three-weekend production of The Wizard of Oz should be prepared for a few surprises.
Yen, who made his Mountain Play debut in The Wizard of Oz in 2008 playing the Tin Man, returns this year in the title role. He thinks that the popularity of Wicked, in which the witch is the real hero, will only make people want to see the original more.
“The lovely thing about doing the traditional musical, for me at least, is that it focuses on a very different character,” Yen said. “Our main protagonist is Dorothy, a minor character in Wicked, so maybe it will give this new generation a similar kind of thrill to what us older folks felt the first time we read Wicked, or saw the show or heard the music. We ended up thinking, ‘Wow, the Wicked Witch is actually OK in this one, and the Wizard is the bad guy. What a head trip.’
“Well, now younger folks will see the story from Dorothy’s perspective, someone they don’t think of as a hero—and maybe now their heads will be blown in the same great way ours were when we first encountered Wicked,” he continued.
The Wizard of Oz, directed by Dyan McBride, runs just four performances over three weekends, on June 7, 13, 14 and 21 at the 4,000-seat Cushing Memorial Amphitheater on Mt. Tamalpais. Three of those shows are on Sundays, per Mountain Play tradition, but this year there will be a special sing-along performance on Saturday, June 14. Shuttles will be available to ferry folks up and down the mountain ($10 per round-trip adult ride, $5 for kids), picking up and dropping off at Tamalpais High School and the Shoreline Parking Lot. Gates open at 9am for picnicking inside the amphitheater.
To Yen, the whole Wicked vs. Wizard question makes him think of the TV show Fallout, an apocalyptic action-adventure based on a popular video game.
“The television show is brilliant, because it doesn’t follow the story of the game,” he noted. “It just uses the same world, elevates a few of the side characters to main characters and writes its own story. So, whether your entry to the Land of Oz is through Dorothy or through Elphaba, you’re still in the Land of Oz, getting a fresh story from a whole new perspective.”
Even with such philosophical debates driving heightened interest, with some theaters around the Bay Area still struggling to get audiences back after the pandemic, enticing 4,000 people to climb a mountain and see a show will not be as easy as it used to be.
The Mountain Play experienced painfully reduced attendance numbers with its 2022, 2023 and 2024 productions. In case one missed them (clearly lots of people did), those shows were Hello Dolly, Into the Woods and Kinky Boots, in that order. Executive director and artistic producer Eileen Grady and the rest of the Mountain Play leadership responded by taking a breather in the summer of 2025.
“It’s been a very important time, during which we’ve been able to take a hard look at how the world has changed since we were shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Grady told the Pacific Sun back in February. “It’s become clear that the huge audiences we once counted on … have just gotten out of the habit, and that if we are going to survive, we’d have to consider a new path forward. We think we’ve found that, and it all begins with a show that is life-affirming, heart-warming, positive and full of joy.”
Yen agrees, noting that people are craving comfort these days by binging old shows and movies that they already know. At the same time, he has noticed that theaters are attempting to heighten the experience of going to a show by adding themed drinks at the theater lobby bar, adding pre-show entertainment or decorating the entrance so a show begins the moment one enters the building.
“The phrase I keep hearing is ‘Make going to the theater a destination, not just an event,’” he said. “Well, the Mountain Play has always been a destination. The actors get there at zero-dark-thirty, get our microphones on, do a vocal warmup, a physical warmup, run all the production numbers. And when we walk out to the stage for the warmup, there are already people in their seats eating their breakfasts with their lunches waiting in a picnic basket.”
“People get up and do our warmup along with us. They really make a day of it. Some people claim their spot and then go for a hike on Mt. Tam. It’s an adventure, man. I tell people it’s more like going to the Ren-Faire than going to a show, because it’s this massive immersive experience you can spend the whole day at if that’s your thing. And for a lot of people, it is,” Yen added.
Returning to “Oz” this time has proven to be a remarkably meaningful experience, Yen explained, partly because of a conversation he had early on with the show’s director and the stage manager.
“They approached me and said, ‘May we ask you a deeply personal question? May we ask your ethnic background?’” Yen recalled. “I said, ‘I’m more than happy to discuss my ethnicity. I’m half Chinese and half German.’”
Director McBride told Yen that she’d been talking with the costume designer about the scene where itinerant circus-performer Professor Marvel, always played by the same actor who plays the Wizard, dons a turban to look into a crystal ball.
“Dyan (McBride) said to me, ‘We’re not really comfortable with Professor Marvel wearing a turban—so we’d like to put you in some kind of traditional Chinese headgear,’” remembered Yen. “I said, ‘I think my dad would be really stoked to see that, if he were still alive.’ I feel so proud and included by that question. That’s what theater should be, respectfully asking a question, and then making adjustments wherever you can. It’s not going to change the story at all for me to wear a different hat—but that little touch makes it so extra special for me.”
“It’s one of the most extraordinary things about working with the Mountain Play organization,” he noted. “I know I can throw out any crazy idea, and I have a lot of crazy ideas, and it will at least be considered. That’s how theater should be, everyone working as a team to create this amazing thing together.”
‘The Wizard of Oz’ runs at 1pm June 7, 13, 14 and 21, at the 4,000-seat Cushing Memorial Amphitheater on Mt. Tamalpais, 801 Panoramic Hwy., Mill Valley. For tickets and more information, visit mountainplay.org.
