For any character, the hairstyle completes the look. And in the Ozian world of “The Wiz,” hair and wigs can take on extravagant and fanciful forms. Designer Charles G. LaPointe has styled hair and created wigs for 74 Broadway productions, including the 2024 revival of “The Wiz.” But this isn’t LaPointe’s first trip to the Emerald City; he’s designed four productions of “The Wiz,” including television’s “Wiz Live!” Yet, as LaPointe told Broadway News, “Each and every production has a different point of view, a different genesis.”
For any show, LaPointe’s first step in wig design is meeting with the costume designer (in this case, Sharen Davis) “to get a sense of the world we are creating and then we bounce ideas off of one another.” Next, LaPointe and his team choose the color, texture and length of hair to complement the character. Then, it’s all about the styling. Here, LaPointe breaks down the story in the styling of five characters from “The Wiz”:
