Anyone still reading this thread?

We're a middle/high school doing RSC and here's what we're doing:
We have a puppet for anytime we are in Kansas, operated by Dorothy. We even had a little fun with it, Dorothy calling for Toto (who is sitting there as a stuffed animal and doesn't move) and going to get him, etc.

Once we were in Oz we dressed up a kid. I know a lot of people tend to put a cute little kid in the costume. We went a different direction. Toto is actually a difficult part to play well because he must interact with all the characters, has specific blocking but no lines, and must be interesting but not distracting. Many beginning actors forget they have to act even when they aren't speaking.
We opted to cast a senior boy (18yrs old) in the role instead. He has a great sense of the comic, responds to the lines being said, and has enough stage sense not to upstage the scene or the other actors. It's fun because he is almost twice the size of Dorothy regularly, so he makes for a big dog. It also makes the "now I know we aren't in Kansas" line a lot of fun as she reacts to the change in her dog. :)

This is just one more way to do it. (I'm allergic to dogs. Sigh.)

There's a company that rents trained Toto's, go that route and you'll sell out (after your advance marketing). They bring two dogs and a trainer.

Edited by John Luzaich - 4/06/10 at 12:12pm