Production History: Adaptations & Approaches to Into the Woods

Perhaps best known in its preserved 1989 filmed form, the original Broadway production was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning three: Best Score, Best Book, and Joanna Gleason for Best Actress. As noted in Stephen Holden's article, the original visions for and experiments with Sondheim and Lapine's show included a Monty Python-like, picaresque fantasy with original characters, no narrator, and a different second-act plot; even The Witch's "Last Midnight" was not added to the show until a week before its Broadway opening. What we know today as Into the Woods went through two years of development, including workshops and productions at Playwrights Horizons, San Diego's Old Globe Theater, then 890 Studios in New York.

Although the Broadway production received mixed reviews from critics (such as Frank Rich who interpreted the musical as an attempt to "top" the Brothers Grimm and, ultimately, "wildly overgrown," confusing, and disappointing; and Edwin Wilson, who saw the show as complicated and a contradictory mix of "straight" and "camp" characters), the show has gone on to become a beloved and frequently produced musical across the country and beyond!

OSF's production took a minimalist and direct world-building approach, with cast members showing up in street clothes and surrounded by music stands, falsely suggesting to audiences that the show would be a concert production, but soon revealing a quirky and playful take on its stories. Though minimal in set design, OSF's version utilized extravagant costumes for its royal characters; inventive costumes for others, like the Wol(ves) dressed in hunting gear, Milky White wrapped in white cloth and carrying a cow's head; and setting the Witch's first entrance in a wheelchair. Prop choices were equally imaginative, with "pimped-out" tricycles for the princes and, in the beginning, a simple pan with "COW" written on it to signify Milky White. 

OSF's production transferred a few months later to The Wallis in Beverly Hills.

Analysis borrowed from "Re-lmagining Sondheim: Non-Traditional Productions in the 21st Century."

As with OSF's production, Fiasco took a minimalistic approach, considered a "stripped down" version, utilizing 10 actors, a piano, and "boundless imagination." Moving even further away from a traditional or conventional approach to the show, Fiasco utilizes "a wooden upright piano as its sole musician/musical director, a barrage of gilded cast-iron piano frames for proscenium decor, a bare ladder to represent Rapunzel's tower, folded music sheets for Cinderella's feathered friends, and hobby horses for the princes." These choices ask audiences "to view these well-known stories through their modern imaginations."

Barrington's production also took an abstract design approach; as described by Dan Dwyer, "Three large geometric open frames introduce the characters, above which are suspended a crop of broken frames overgrown with gnarly wood (think Dali’s cubist motifs.)" These literal frames are mobile, "heightening the fantasy while perserving the magic" (Dwyer).

With the unique casting of a Black male Witch (Mykal Kilgore), The Witch audiences may be familiar with "morphs into a gorgeous Amazonian queen, bedecked in a billowing, glimmering, white satin, gold-festooned gown" (Dwyer). Like other adaptations, Barrington's production intertwines its whimsical approach "with modern twists" (Dwyer).

The brainchild of Freddie Gershon, company co-chairman of Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, "Into the Woods Sr" is an abridged version for senior actors. The company's "Sr" shows are similar to "Jr" productions that present shortened works, with "Sr" shows geared specifically towards a vast range of abilities and access, including varying needs to read from scripts, using wheelchairs, and/or holding onto props like a ladder.

The first production of its kind in NY, the "Into the Woods Sr" company were visited by Sondheim and Lapine during rehearsals, and other "Sr" shows have taken place in nursing homes, community centers, and community theatres. The point of such "Sr" shows is not to recreate Broadway-quality productions, but, as Gershon iterates, "It’s about reinventing yourself in a character — and the joyful whimsy of putting on a show" (qtd. in Coleman).