Brandon Waddles is still part of the faculty in Wayne State University’s Department of Music, but he’s left his position as director of choral activities to hit the road with “The Wiz.”

That’s how much the groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning musical means to the Detroit native and internationally renowned musician, who’s serving as pianist and associate music director for the current touring revival of the production — his first time ever on the road with a theater piece.

“I have been connected to ‘The Wiz’ since childhood,” Waddles, 37, the son of Detroit music great Alvin Waddles, says by phone. “It’s the first musical that I saw in a theater space, in the early 90s, I believe, when it came back to Detroit for a revival tour. And it was the first show that I ever saw in a rehearsal space, when a good friend of mine was teaching theater in Flint and I went to see the rehearsal.

“So this show has been a part of my life for a long time. I know myself and many of the cast have been or were influenced by the movie (in 1978), too, with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson and Ted (Ross) and everybody. It was a huge thing for us to see ourselves in a Broadway musical space like that.”

Launched in Detroit in 1974 before opening on Broadway the following year, “The Wiz” put a Black spin on Frank Baum’s 1900 fantasy novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and made a star out of Stephanie Mills, who originated the role of Dorothy. It was a critical and box office smash whose seven Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Flint-raised Dee Dee Bridgewater. In addition to the film adaptation a “The Wiz Live!” television presentation aired in December 2015 on NBC.

Waddles — who started with “The Wiz” in January and will be with the tour through next May — was particularly attracted to the latest stage incarnation because it’s more a reimagination than a retelling. Directed by Schele Williams, with music supervision by Joseph Joubert — one of Waddles’ mentors — “The Wiz” 2025 updates previous productions, especially on the musical side. “I think that African-American music, Black music, is continuing to influence itself — each iteration influences further iterations,” Waddles explains. So while there are still plenty of references to Harold Wheeler’s original orchestrations, he adds, the footprint has been widened to incorporate elements of contemporary R&B and rap, and New Orleans second-line rhythms.

“No Bad News,” performed by the Wicked Witch Evillene, has taken on a more pronounced gospel flavor, and the production also includes “Wonder, Wonder Why,” a Dorothy and Cowardly Lion song that was cut during pre-Broadway engagements and previously only included in a 1983 revival.

“There’s this beautiful amalgamation of all the music that we have experienced and created over the past several hundred years that are put into this show,” says Waddles, an alumnus of Detroit’s Renaissance High School who earned his doctorate in music education from Florida State University. He’s worked at and led chorale ensembles at the University of Michigan, Morehouse College, Brigham Young University, Rider University’s Westminster Choir College (where Waddles received his master’s degree) and more. He also serves as musical director for singer Ledisi and her Nina Simone concert series and conducts Ravi Coltrane’s concerts of his late mother (and Detroit native) Alice Coltrane’s music.

“That amalgamation has been part of our culture since the Black arrival in America,” continues Waddles, who’s still teaching an African-American music history course, remotely, for Wayne State. He’ll also be conducting the matinee shows on June 28-29 during the Fisher Theatre run. “Everything — the blues and jazz and gospel music — all utilized the things that have come before them, with respect for the original but with a mind towards the new. And that’s how (‘The Wiz’) is approached; it’s done with taste and of course done with great intentions and respect towards the original compositions by Charlie Smalls. It’s really exciting and rewarding.”

Waddles says the same philosophy has been applied to other aspects of “The Wiz,” including choreography and other visual elements. “You’ll experience the dances of New Orleans, the dances of the Alvin Ailey crew. … You’ll feel all of that,” he says. “The Yellow Brick Road has been reimagined; it reminds me of great HBCU (Historical Black Universities and Colleges) marching band culture, with such beautiful light and color. There’s just so much careful attention brought to all of these things.”

Waddles says the entire company is also well aware of the power of the statement “The Wiz” is making now, in a societal situation where wokeness and free expression, as well as diversity and inclusion, are under attack. Those circumstances make it, in some ways, the right show at the right time, and Waddles affirms that “it is so palpable to feel the energy from these audiences. … People are still in dire need, they thirst for the message, and ‘The Wiz’ is the appropriate drink.”

“None of us could have imagined, even as they were sitting down working on this reimagination, that we would be in the space that we are now,” Waddles acknowledges. “But ‘The Wiz’ is in the midst of, ‘let’s talk about it.’ One thing that’s prevalent about Black art in general is that it can be so celebratory and so funny and so engaging, and you won’t even realize that you have been hit over the head with a political message. So it’s beautifully subversive, in a way.

“I just hope they also feel empowered. I’m grateful that we have this amalgamation and collaboration of thought to ensure that everybody that comes to the show will really be part of the conversation.”