Into the Woods – Houghton STAR

by Kat Wojsiat

I had the pleasure of seeing Houghton University’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods twice! Director Amanda Cox did something a little different and split the cast so that many roles had two actors, and I wanted to see and compare both casts.

Both did an amazing job, and it was fun to see each actor put their own spin on their character. For those of you who did not get to see it, Into the Woods follows a baker (Luc Peirera) and his wife (Rebekah Scharf) as they journey through the mysterious woods to find four objects demanded of them by their neighboring witch (Linnette Taylor).

Along the way, they come across multiple fairytale characters who live in their world, including Jack (Thomas Auld & Ethan Carr), Little Red (Grace Vuolo & Josey Ikker), and Cinderella (Emily Quick & Rachel McVeigh). Together, they face giants, death, princes, and a race against time.

All of the actors in the show clearly put a lot of work into learning their lines, choreography, and characters, and it is clear that there was so much fun and dedication put into these performances. The vocal performances put out by the leads were highly impressive. Most of the leads had at least one solo or duet where the audience got to see them shine.

Surely word has spread, but this show was made even more eventful thanks to the campus-wide power outage that occurred on Saturday. Right toward the end of Auld’s solo during the matinee, the power went out, causing the stage and the mics to go dark. Auld continued without faltering, delivering an impressive and composed performance through the confusion. After his scene ended, the show took a brief intermission during which the tech team went to work finding solutions. They quickly found lights, and the rest of the performance was completed in darkness, as well as the Saturday night performance. The actors adapted very well and delivered a great performance. I got to go to three of the four performances (although I did not get to stay the whole time for each one) and each one was meaningful and fun. They did a great job, and I highly encourage students to go to future lyric theatre productions! ★

By Abigail Bates

Starting March 30 – this Thursday – at 7 p.m., four performances of Lyric Theatre’s “Into the Woods” will be held in the Wesley Chapel. Following opening night, March 31 and April 1 have a show at 7 p.m., with a matinee at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

“We’ve been rehearsing since January, and we actually cast the show–we had auditions and everything back last November,” says Professor Amanda Cox, director of the musical.

Professor Cox does this so singers have time to start preparing their characters and music, especially for a more complicated musical like “Into the Woods”, a musical written by James Lapine, with music by Stephen Sondheim.

Singers spent about two weeks learning the music, and then they created staging. After this step, the singers layered in who their role’s character is, and how to interact with other characters onstage.

“It’s like building blocks, but if you skip some of the bottom ones, the whole thing’s gonna fall down,” Professor Cox laughs.

The remaining steps are props, costumes, and everything else, including the pit orchestra conducted by Dr. Timothy McGarvey. He’s responsible for keeping the show moving through cues to singers in the more complicated portions of Stephen Sondheim’s melodies.

“He [Sondheim] is a very inventive and creative, and kind of–difficult to learn sometimes–composer. He makes really interesting rhythmic choices that are unexpected,” Professor Cox comments.

Singers have to simultaneously learn the notes and rhythms while training their brains to anticipate different and unexpected rhythms. On top of this, Professor Cox explains, the singers are memorizing the lyrics and dialogue, as this musical contains an even mix of dialogue and lyrics.

Key difficulties for the singers lie in counting correctly to begin on time and singing in the right places during group numbers.

Junior Josey Ikker (‘24) is double cast for the role of Red with Grace Vuolo (‘24). Ikker practices memorizing lines and lyrics by playing the music or scene on repeat and listening to the line before hers for timing. As she’s worked with her role, she has formed a deeper understanding of Red.

“With Red,” Ikker says, “she does have that level of innocence, like there’s more innocence in her than how I’ve pictured it when I first watched the show. And you see her as, like, this very innocent girl at first. But then, as the story continues, you kinda see, like that small sense of the dark sense of humor that she has.”

“Into the Woods” is a story about humanity and choices, Professor Cox says. It’s about seeing others as human and trying to empathize and understand the choices they make, even if you disagree in the end.

“My favorite thing of sharing with an audience,” Professor Cox says, “is always just the absolute magic and power of theater to invite people to think about things that they didn’t know they were gonna think about when they walked in the door. It’s like, a little bit subversive, but in a good way.” ★