backstreet

With no heel clicks needed, I was whisked to “The Wizard of Oz’s” Sphere premiere in a red sedan by a Lyft driver named — no fooling — Ruby, who said she was grateful that the Backstreet Boys’ recent stint at the arena “made Vegas busy for a minute.”

The production, which opened Friday at the Ahmanson Theatre under the fizzy direction of Luke Sheppard, reimagines a new post-Romeo life for Juliet while riding a magic carpet of chart-toppers from juggernaut Swedish producer Max Martin, who has spun gold with Katy Perry, Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, among other pop titans.

Take, for instance, one of the early numbers, “I Want It That Way,” a pop ballad made famous by the Backstreet Boys.

“Or it was a complete retelling of ‘NSync or Backstreet Boys, and we said we do not want anything that’s close to what we worked on, because we’re still friends with all those guys and we want to have that separation.”

The program’s host AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys called Jowsey one of his “all-time favorite flirts.”