“It’s Dorothy!” succeeds mightily when it comes to its most elemental thesis

To help tell (and sell) his concept, McHale…has assembled a truly enviable cast of chatterboxes, not just creators, artisans, performers, and cultural commentators like Amber Ruffin, Gregory Maguire, John Waters, Lena Waithe, Margaret Cho, Roxane Gay, Rufus Wainwright, and Walter Murch, but an eye-popping array of women who have actually played Dorothy on the stage and screen.

The breadth of former Dorothys that McHale has brought together speaks to just how wide-ranging this film is: audiences will be treated to insights from Ashanti, Fairuza Balk, Danielle Hope, Nichelle Lewis, and Shanice Shantay. And if you are not the sort of Oz fan that can reel off precisely which project each of these talented women played Dorothy in? You’re about to get a wonderful, quite honest education and introduction to each of them. (One additional, if repetitive note: can we get a documentary just about Shantay, who was chosen through an open casting call to star in “The Wiz Live!” when she was just 18? What a charisma machine!)

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