Update: Coronado 'Wizard of Oz' Celebration Canceled

A weekend-long celebration of the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz that was scheduled to take place next month across Coronado has been canceled, members of the Coronado Cultural Arts Commission announced Thursday.

The weekend to celebrate the book and movie was to include one-weekend only showings of the movie at Village Theatre, a glamorous dinner at the Hotel del Coronado and possibly a visit from an original munchkin, members of the commission said.

Multiple proposals for the celebration were considered including a parade down Orange Avenue, a costume contest, lectures by experts on the history of the film and more.

A meeting held Thursday at City Hall was attended by Coronado nonprofit and civic organizations who presented proposals. 

There it was announced that Warners Bros. Studios decided to pull out following the cancellation of a Hotel del Coronado gala planned by the Coronado Hospital Foundation and Coronado School of the Arts Foundation, St. Denis said.

"The timing was just wrong for them. CoSA has school starting, and that was a little too pricey for them they didn't really have the power to do that," St. Denis told other members of the Cultural Arts Commission at their meeting Thursday. "And the hospital is putting on their golf tournament the Thursday before their event."

Efforts to bring together a The Wizard of Oz celebration to Coronado have been made by members of the Coronado Cultural Arts Commission for more than a year, St. Denis said.

One of the most popular children's books authors of early 1900s America, L. Frank Baum wrote part of his Oz series while staying at the Hotel del Coronado and a home nearby.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the first in the Oz series and the book that inspired the movie, was not written in Coronado.

Baum was so fond of Coronado he wrote poems about the Crown City that were published in the San Diego Union Tribune and allegedly designed the lighting fixtures in the Hotel del Coronado's Crown Room.

Instead of ticket sales at a box office at a set rate, community groups would sell tickets to showings of the movie Sept. 21-22, said Mayor Casey Tanaka.

By July 12 ideas were down to three proposals:

- Dinner in the Crown Room at Hotel del Coronado, sponsored by the Coronado Hospital Foundation and Coronado School of the Arts Foundation for about $175 a ticket

- Coronado Yacht Club festivities at their club house before and after screenings for $75-100

- Symposium organized by Coronado Historical Association, Coronado School of the Arts, Coronado Islander Film Festival and Coronado Cultural Arts Association to discuss the history of the movie for $20-25

"I think that all three proposals are great. I think there's failure on my part and on the part of the couple I was working with the Orcs. Maybe we could have communicated more," said Mayor Casey Tanaka said. 

"Time was ticking. We didn't have all our ducks in a row and we didn't want to do a half job," said Christina Curtin with the CoSA Foundation. "We definitely weren't able to sell 500 tickets alone in such a short amount of time."

Tanaka worked with Millard and Dina Orcs, who "brought the opportunity to Coronado," Tanaka said. The couple acted as the main liaison between Coronado civic groups and Warner Bros. Dina Orcs declined to comment on the matter.

"Rather than a process to work out the costs or change pricing, we were just abruptly notified yesterday to pull the screenings," Tanaka said about the meeting. "I don't want to speak on anyone else's behalf cause I'm not really authorized to but I was surprised." 

"So the key point of friction was if you have one event at 20-25 does that hurt the viability of the 175 ticket," he said.

The number of tickets to be sold by each of the three proposal groups, ranging from 100-400, was also a challenge, he said.

"To me I thought there should have been a range of costs because we have a range of citizens," Tanaka said. 

"Even though the result of it didn't take us to the wonderful world of oz we are here on the yellow brick road trying to still figure out how to get there," said Commission Member Suan Enowitz.

The Coronado Cultural Arts Commission plans to host some sort of The Wizard of Oz celebration in the near future, just not the one that was planned, said Commission Chair Heidi Wilson.

"Coronado had an amazing connection to L. Frank Baum," Wilson said. "And as a community we have an opportunity to use that to showcase our community in all its facets and all of our organizations and we now know all of the various components that are involved."

Several contacts were made between various civic organizations while trying to organize a celebration, Wilson said. 

"So at one of the very soon meetings I will be bringing back a proposal for our commission to take our event and set a date for it and start moving ahead with it. So that we can capitalize on all the hard work and energy that has been put forth."

Clarification: The original version of this article mentioned Sharp Coronado Hospital as part of one of three proposed events however Coronado Hospital Foundation was involved, not Sharp Coronado Hospital.