Shanice Williams will step into Dorothy's ruby red slippers for NBC's "The Wiz Live!" a musical adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz."
The 18-year-old theater actress joins Grammy winners Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige and Tony Award nominee David Alan Grier for the live event, slated to air on Dec. 3
The network held open auditions in New York in June and said it plucked Williams out of hundreds of applicants hoping to play the Kansas farm girl who is swept to the land of Oz during a tornado.
Williams, a New Jersey native, has had five years of musical theater, including extensive dance and piano, and previously appeared in productions of "West Side Story," "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," "42nd Street," "Seussical" and "Pippin.