Whaaaaat? There was supposed to be *more* Beecher in drag?!

[vanillalime]

This morning I was skimming through the shiny, updated Great Big Oz Resource List, when I noticed a link for an old fansite for Dean Winters. I decided to check it out and stumbled across several archived articles about Dean and Oz that had been written back when the show originally aired. I started reading this 2000 article about the show from the Indianapolis Star, and my jaw about hit the floor when I read the following passage:

[Rita] Moreno tells what she calls a "delicious" story about Fontana calling her with an idea about how to stage the prison riot that ended Oz's first season. She said Fontana wanted to put on West Side Story with Beecher in drag as Anita. The simulated violence in the play would turn real, and the riot would be on.

Unfortunately, Moreno says with a laugh, the rights to the play were unavailable.

OHMYGOD! How awesome would that have been?! And so completely bizarre! It would've been like Cop Rock!!!

And I just can't help but laugh at the fact that Tom has this apparently uncontrollable desire to put Lee in drag. Third time's a charm?

I don't even know why, but I love this idea so damn much. (Actually, that's a lie -- I know EXACTLY why I love this idea so much.) What a shame it didn't happen!

(Random Fun Fact: Did you know that Lee once said that his guilty pleasure was watching Rupaul's Drag Race?)

Comments

[red-titan.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that would've been something! Shame it never happened D:

It's great that Lee has no problem dressing up in drag. The guy is so confident with his masculinity. Haha.

[vanillalime]

Considering all the things he did in Oz, I'd say Lee has no problem with just about anything. :-)

[mazephoenix.livejournal.com]

Aggh..I want this so bad.

[vanillalime]

Lee in drag + singing + dancing = Good Times!

(And now I'm wondering where iskra667 has been lately.... )

[mazephoenix.livejournal.com]

I heard from her a while back, and she's fine but not much on lj.

[vanillalime]

Oh, that's good to hear! Thanks for letting me know.

[macaroncey.livejournal.com]

Crossdressing in my favorite tag on AO3 so I would have loved to see that, Tom has always had the idea of "a play in the play" apparently, even before Macbeth. And I love his sense of humour.

[vanillalime]

I guess it was easy to do Macbeth since it's in the public domain. He should've just added a couple of songs to it!

(Did you know that, originally, Beecher was supposed to sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for the Oz talent show? But Fontana couldn't get the rights to that song, either, and that's when he decided to go with "I Got It Bad, And That Ain't Good" instead.)

[drsquidlove.livejournal.com]

I come away with two thoughts:

1. There was no idea too wacky for Fontana. This makes me wonder about all the cracky ideas that got tossed around that didn't make it to the show, and that is a mental rabbit hole.

2. So he eventually he got to do his violent play idea with Macbeth, and now I am sad that Toby didn't play Lady Macbeth.

S.

[vanillalime]

1. What's strange is that I used to watch St. Elsewhere, and I don't remember it having any particularly cracky storylines. (Although the series finale is another story.) Maybe the other writers for that show kept Fontana in check, so then when he was left to his own devices for Oz, he just went crazy.

2. Maybe by the time Season 6 rolled around, Fontana had moved on from his fixation of Lee-in-drag.
(I remember reading that he was the one who made Lee get his hair cut short for Season 6, replacing the Season 5 "clown hair" with the crew cut.)

[trillingstar]

That would have been amazingggggg.

Lee-in-drag is practically a hallmark now, there was Cast a Deadly Spell, and that episode of Rescue Me, and Drop Dead Diva, and Oz, and he wore rhinestone-bedazzled chaps on Weird Science so that obviously counts. He also spends a lot of time in bathrobes and hospital gowns, which are practically dresses -- gowns! -- and I'd argue that some of his Wayne's World ensembles could qualify too *g*

tbh that does not surprise me in the slightest.

[vanillalime]

He also wore a pink ballerina tutu on Weird Science at one point! Someone (Anne, maybe?) has an icon of that.

There was so much to love about that show.