ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How do you guys feel this morning?
NEIL MERON:Were feeling great.
CRAIG ZADAN:Also the social media figures are quite astonishing.
Credit: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
Look, we learned our lessons on doing the Oscars for 3 years.
We learned how to do social media and tie it into a show.
I think that we used everything that we learned and we had like unbelievable support from people.
MERON:Kerry Washington.
Just a lotta love out there forThe Wizand for live musicals.
Did you guys reach out to those people?
Or where they just excited?
It was a combination.
We tried to have the philosophy of no stone unturned.
People often like to hate-watch these things.
But the Twitter reaction this time was really positive.
MERON:I know.
We were like, Really?
This is a new world.
ZADAN:We have never had that happen.
What do you attribute that to?
ZADAN:I think that people loved the cast.
I think they loved the show.
And I think that they were expecting to see something that theyve seen before and they didnt.
We changed out everything.
We had all these new conceptual set designs and the costumes and all that.
It didnt look like the other shows.
Who came up with the voguing Emerald City?
Im real into that.
MERON:Fatima Robinson, our brilliant choreographer, wanted the choreography to reflect what was going on now.
She said that the clubs are telling her that theres this new style of voguing coming back.
So she was of the moment and Fatima just outdid herself.
She knew what was going on in the streets and she put it inThe Wiz!
That was my favorite moment aside from the sexy poppies.
MERON:Oh yeah.
Thats the same thing.
Did you two have a favorite moment that stood out last night?
ZADAN:I think there were things that were representative of the technique we did like the tornado.
That tornado was amazing.
I think that we have never used any technique like that before.
I think that was representative of something you looked at and went, Wow.
I havent seen that before.
MERON:My favorite moment was Home because it operated on so many levels.
It operated on the message of what it was all about.
It just is a heart-stopping number and it was also the final star-is-born moment for Shanice.
Our instincts were basically proven by that performance.
That number just kills me.
I just thought it was magnificent and it was heartbreaking and emotional.
I was really proud of David and Shanice on that number.
Theres a video of Shanice coming backstageafter Home and everyone was cheering for her.
What was that like for her?
MERON:I dont think she knows what hit her.
I dont know where it comes from.
Its kind of remarkable.
We felt it was a knockout and, especially last night, it played really well.
There were some updates, like Addaperle had an iPad and Oz has a sushi restaurant.
MERON:[Laughs] Thats Harvey Fierstein.
That is Harvey Fierstein working with Kenny Leon in collaboration.
Are you starting to work on it today?
MERON:Today is all about recovering and its about celebrating whats happened last night.
Obviously everyone in the cast has an invitation to go to Broadway.
Obviously a lot of them are booked on tours and all these different projects.
Are they going to say Oh yeah, I want to go to Broadway for a year?
or will somebody say, Ill give you six months.
We dont know any of that.
I think a lot of them may consider strongly maybe going to Broadway with it.
Everyone always wants to know what the next one is.
MERON:No.Wewanna know what the next one is gonna be.
