As a 17-year-old Brooklyn belter, Stephanie Mills didn’t exactly ease herself on down the road to Oz — and Broadway immortality — five decades ago in “The Wiz.”
“My mother had to make me go to the audition because I didn’t want to go,” Mills, 67, told The Post about that fateful first tryout for the starring role of Dorothy in 1974. “I had gone up for so many things and then I didn’t get them, so I was kind of disappointed, so I didn’t want to go. But she made me go, and I’m glad she did. It’s been a wonderful journey.”
Indeed, it was a brand new day for Mills — and, ultimately, the Great White Way — when she first stepped into Dorothy’s ruby slippers 50 years ago in the Tony-winning musical that put an African-American spin on “The Wizard of Oz.”
After “The Wiz” — originally subtitled “The Super Soul Musical ‘Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ ” — opened at the Morris A . Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore on Oct. 21, 1974, Mills, with Toto in tow, followed that yellow brick road to Broadway’s Majestic Theatre in January 1974.
And for the first time since “The Wiz,” Mills is now back in a Broadway musical as Hermes in “Hadestown,” Anaïs Mitchell’s Tony-winning folk opera that has transformed the Walter Kerr Theatre into a Greek underworld since 2019.
“I hadn’t seen it before I got the offer,” said Mills, who is now based in Charlotte, North Carolina. “They flew me to New York to see it, and I loved it.”
And then there was a magical “Wiz” connection: “I realized that André De Shields, who was my Wiz 50 years ago, won a Tony as Hermes. We saw each other at the opening of ‘The Wiz’ [Broadway revival in April], and I was telling him that the people were really interested in me doing ‘Hadestown.’ And he was like, ‘Oh, you’ve got to do it.’
“And once I actually said I would do it, I called him for some advice,” she continued. “It’s so funny, because he was like, ‘Well, I can’t tell you how to play it like a woman, but I can tell you that Hermes always has to be engaging.’ ”
But for Mills — who began her “Hadestown” run in July and continues through October — coming back “Home” to Broadway after five decades has been a tricky transition.
“This role was a beast to learn, honey,” she said. “I’m on stage the entire time. My feet are burning by the time the show’s over. But it’s so rewarding.”
This was also Mills’ first time doing a sung-through musical. “Every word is in a beat, and that was challenging for me,” she said. “I really wanted to get it and feel comfortable with it.”
Doing eight shows a week, though, hits different when you’re 67 instead of 17. “I mean, I would like to maybe not do the matinees,” Mills quipped about those Wednesday and Saturday afternoon shows. “I always said that if someone can do theater, they can do anything. And I’m having a great time.”
As Mills has found another piece of heaven in “Hadestown,” she is transported back to that beaming black girl in that white Sunday-school dress, proudly rocking those Afro puffs, in “The Wiz.”
“Just to be around all those black people creating this juicy, delicious show was wonderful,” she reflected on the original Broadway production. “My special memory of opening night is [director] Geoffrey Holder made me a blue velvet tuxedo to wear to the opening-night party … It was very family-oriented, and we did a lot of things together.”
After leaving Broadway and her “Wiz” family, Mills went on to become a recording star with a string of R&B hits in the late ’70s and ’80s — from “What Cha Gonna Do with My Lovin’” and “Sweet Sensation” to “I Have Learned to Respect the Power of Love” and “I Feel Good All Over.” But it was “Never Knew Love Like This Before” that became her biggest pop hit in 1980, winning her one and only Grammy.
Still, it’s her “Home” showstopper from “The Wiz” that is the biggest request from her new Broadway fam: “Everybody in ‘Hadestown’ wants me to sing ‘Home,’ like ‘You’re gonna have to sing ‘Home’ before you leave.’ They say that all the time.
“And,” Mills added, “now that I think about people that have passed on from ‘The Wiz,’ that song means so much more now.”
