The Girl from Oz

The Girl from Oz was a planned stage play, a musical comedy that L. Frank Baum wrote c. 1909–12. The play is one of several Baum dramatic projects that were ultimately never produced, though The Girl from Oz is more complete than some of Baum's other stage projects.

If it had ever been produced, the title of the work might have changed — since the script generally calls Oz by the alternative name Delcapan. An island in the Pacific Ocean, Delcapan is ruled by a Russian princess in exile. It is a place where women dominate men in all aspects of society. Elile, the play's heroine, is young and beautiful, and a typically assertive woman from Delcapan; she comes to a U.S. Army base, where everyone falls in love with her.

The Girl from Oz exists as a typescript in the collection of Syracuse University. One song from the play, "When in Trouble Come to Papa," was used in The Tik-Tok Man of Oz instead. A Baum theater project from c. 1912, The Girl of Tomorrow, might have been an adaptation or later version of Girl from Oz. Girl of Tomorrow was never produced, and perhaps never completed.

At one point in his career, Frank Joslyn Baum wrote an adaptation of Girl from Oz, apparently a version for radio. This too was never produced, however. A typescript of the younger Baum's version is also preserved in Syracuse University's collection.

References

• Katharine M. Rogers. L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz: A Biography. New York, St. Martin's Press, 2002.