Perhaps one of the greatest minds in the musical theater world was the late Stephen Sondheim. Known for intricate harmonic structures and witty lyrics, Sondheim’s musicals are a fantastic display of theatrical genius. “Into the Woods,” with music and lyrics by Sondheim and book by James Lapine, is no exception. The Music Department’s production of “Into the Woods” was produced by seniors Annie Brewer, Liam Oley and Abby Wilson as their senior project. The show was performed in the Martel Recital Hall on April 19 as a semi-staged, in-concert production directed by Brewer, with the cast performing downstage while Musical Director Oley conducted an all-student orchestra behind the actors.
“Into the Woods” is a retelling of classic fairytales by the Brothers Grimm, including “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Jack and the Beanstalk,” all occurring on the same three nights in the same woods. It is truly a unique show, relying on the audience’s familiarity with these fairy tales for worldbuilding. Sondheim cleverly weaves these stories together to compose a larger musical narrative that serves as a cautionary tale against wishing for too much.
Brewer, Oley and Wilson came up with this project with the hopes of bringing more musical theater to the Music Department and to encourage its greater incorporation into the program curriculum. Brewer expressed, “In a broader sense, in terms of musicology, there’s definitely a gap in research in musical theater repertoire.” She continued, “It’s a cool moment when a lot more scholarship is going to start to happen, and I think that doing this project has been part of this process as well.”
As music majors, Brewer, Oley and Wilson were all interested in the different sonic aspects of “Into the Woods.” An interesting facet of this musical is how the score reflects the story by following its own narrative structure. Wilson said, “If you follow the keys throughout the entire composition, you can see how they reflect the narrative, which I also thought was really cool. It lands in G major, which is the place it’s searching for the whole time.”
Before the performance began, Wilson presented a brief but in-depth analysis covering the music theory behind Sondheim’s arrangements. She explained how his choice of chords, dissonance and modality creates tension alongside a simultaneous sense of uncertainty and familiarity which develops over the play’s three acts. To follow, Brewer laid out the history of some of the show’s many professional productions, from its first run on Broadway in 1987, which jump-started its success, to its time on the West End, as well as its film adaptation in 2014 and later stage revival in 2022. Shortly after Brewer’s presentation, Oley’s orchestra and the show’s ensemble of student actors took their places onstage and were met with boisterous applause from the packed hall.
The concert was an immersive experience that celebrated the piece, featuring a small ensemble of skilled players from the Vassar College Orchestra and a cast of talented singers and actors. Students, faculty and families were not only able to witness the world that Sondheim and Lapine created and brought to life by the student actors and producing seniors, but were also given the opportunity to experience this show through Wilson and Brewer’s analytical lens. “Into the Woods” centers around Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack, Rapunzel and The Witch—who is loosely based on the witch from Rapunzel’s story—as well The Baker and The Baker’s Wife, two original characters by Sondheim. While this production was semi-staged, its musical focus was a beautiful testament to Sondheim’s composition.
Brewer had previous directing experience from her involvement in the musical “Once” with The Future Waitstaff of America (FWA) last semester. However, she felt that the process for directing an in-concert production was a completely different undertaking, as the music was the focal point. “In terms of how I’ve been approaching it, [I’ve been] thinking about where I can set people up so that they sound the best,” said Brewer. “For me, with everything that I’ve done in staging, music sounding good is always the priority.”
As for Oley, he hoped this production would help to highlight the accessible and emotional power of Sondheim’s musical storytelling and lyricism. “I think it’s so interesting that people often talk about Sondheim’s work being almost too intellectual, or too complex to be emotionally relatable,” Oley said. “I think that this ending of ‘Into the Woods’ totally disproves that. It shows that he’s absolutely as invested in the emotion and the pathos as he is in the wit and intellectualism.”
Wilson shared the goal of presenting “Into the Woods” as both an intellectually interesting piece worthy of academic analysis and a show fit for enjoyment by a broader audience. “Musical theater just has such a big impact on the public that it’s almost inevitable that we should study it,” said Wilson. “It’s such an important thing to our society that, as music majors, I hope we’re able to learn more about it. It’s a whole other musical world that we don’t get to explore very often in our majors.”
Oley echoed this, mentioning that he felt musical theater is quite relevant in the academic field of musicology and deserves as much attention as classical music. He said, “I think that the same way that we might study Mozart’s operas or Wagner, or Verdi, we can apply that same rigorous analysis to American musical theater and Sondheim’s compositions.”
For Brewer, Oley and Wilson, this project was not only a culmination of their studies but also a labor of love, as they all share an interest in and a deep appreciation for musical theater and Sondheim. Part of the rationale for choosing “Into the Woods” was how beloved the show is by musicians and actors alike, and Wilson hoped that this passion carried through in the performance. “I just want people to really love it,” said Wilson. “That’s the impact I hope it has, and I hope it inspires people to take on similar big projects no matter what kind of experience they have.”