@InTheseHeels

Incidentally, when it comes to which actor played the part(s): in the plays, there are all sorts of wild things.

When #AlanAyckbourn directed one of the plays in 1968, Nigel Forde played both the Guardian of the Gate and Uncle Henry. The Wizard was a different actor.

http://careers.alanayckbourn.net/page4/page88/

In the NPR+L.A. Children's Museum centennial audio dramatization, John Goodman played (only) the Guardian of the Gates. Harry Anderson was the Wizard. (And #MichelleTrachtenberg was Dorothy.)

It is difficult to include John Goodman and Munchkin-sized in the same sentence without some form of negative. (-:

https://newwwoz.blogspot.com/2012/03/wonderful-wizard-of-oz-centennial.html

One could perform Elizabeth Fuller Chapman's 1928 play with the Guardian of the Gates and the Wizard as the same person, although there is one point in act 3 where it is implied that they are on stage together.

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102943486

#WizardOfOz #GuardianOfTheGates #LFrankBaum #NPR #NigelForde #JohnGoodman #ElizabethFullerChapman

@InTheseHeels

Mostly, no. In some adaptations, such as The Wiz, and in some of the novels, it's either multiple guardians of the gate or identifiably another named character (e.g. Faramant).

In the first Baum book, the Guardian of the Gates has xyr own living quarters away from the wizard's palace, which they have to go back to in order to set off to the Wicked Witch of the West, and doesn't have the appearance of the wizard, being described as Munchkin-sized.

https://oz.fandom.com/wiki/Guardian_of_the_Gates

https://newwwoz.blogspot.com/2015/02/volkov-thon-wizard-of-emerald-city.html

#WizardOfOz #GuardianOfTheGates #AlexanderVolkov #MagicLand #TheWiz #LFrankBaum