Where There's a Wiz, There's a Way

At an open casting call last summer — her first — Shanice Williams went in and "just did what I loved."

The result? She nailed the audition and was cast as Dorothy in NBC's The Wiz Live!

Life hasn't been the same since.

In advance of last December's broadcast (which drew nearly 14 million viewers), NBC's publicity team booked her on everything from The Today Show to The World Dog Awards (she presented Toto with a life achievement award). "Every interview, I was told, 'You have some big shoes to fill!'"

Turns out it was an easy fit. "I really connect with Dorothy," Williams says. "She's feisty and creative." But the actress-singer happily cops that she couldn't have eased on down that yellow brick road without costars like Queen Latifah, Stephanie Mills, Mary J. Blige and singer-songwriter Ne-Yo. "They had my back. The night of the show, everything was easy!"

The New Jersey-born teen grew up an only child with her mom, a postal worker, and dad, a hospital security guard, who raised her to "just be myself." That translated to singing around the house and belting out gospel tunes in her pastor-granddad's church. First genuine part: playing the Good Witch of the North in a middle-school production of The Wiz.

Still, Williams isn't all Dorothy all the time. She's a big fan of edgy comic Amy Schumer, though she clarifies, "I don't like to use profanity." Today she's fretting about forgetting to return a friend's earrings ("Don't tell her I'm wearing them!") and missing her family dog ("She just had seven puppies!").

She'd love to star in a Broadway update of you-know-what, but her dream is to bring Once on This Island, a musical about a peasant matchmaker in the French Antilles, back to Broadway. And maybe she could do a sitcom.

Bottom line: "I don't want to do anything other than performing." The idea of toiling in a "real job," Williams says with a laugh, "is all the inspiration I need."