Mean Ole Lion on Mean Ole Tweeters: David Alan Grier Knows ‘Black Twitter Is Cocked & Locked’ for The Wiz Live!

With The Sound of Music, Peter Pan and, come December 3, The Wiz, NBC has made a tradition of bringing musical theater to the small screen for a series of all-star live telecasts. But audiences have since created an annual tradition of their own: live-tweeting their way through anything and everything that could possibly go wrong.

“I’ve been a part of that reaction; I’ve live-tweeted,” David Alan Grier, who takes on the “mean ole” Lion in The Wiz Live!, admitted at a recent press event. "That one black pirate—he don't get no lines?!" he quipped over howls from co-stars Ne-Yo and Ellijah Kelley. “Black Twitter is cocked and loaded!”

Now, the three-time Tony nominee is on the other side of the proverbial weapon that is social media. “Black Twitter will find that one curler stuck in your hair.” But now that he’s actually a part of the experience, none of that matters. “We all love it, or else we wouldn’t be here…Damn the torpedoes.”

Things can go wrong. Toto might bark off-cue. Someone might trip. Yes, a curler might get stuck in Grier’s mane. But that’s all part of the live experience, and does nothing to diminish the performance they’re offering. “Throw it all on the wall,” Grier said. “Just know: Whatever you saw, we’re giving our all.”