MONTVALE—Two weeks after the hit revival closes on Broadway, St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale presents Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods,” a clever musical intertwining the plots of a rich roster of Brothers Grimm folk tales.
Considered one of Sondheim’s greatest musicals, “Into the Woods” sees characters enter each other’s stories, providing both fantastic humor and real-world ponderables. The show famously explores the unintended consequences of the characters’ storied wishes and quests.
St. Joe’s cast is composed of boys from St. Joe’s and girls from several high schools in Bergen and Rockland counties.
Performances are at the Inserra Theater, on the campus of St. Joseph Regional High School, 40 Chestnut Ridge Road.
Showtimes are:
- Friday, Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.
- Saturday, Jan. 28 at 2 and 7 p.m.
- Sunday, Jan. 29 at 3 p.m.
- Friday, Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. (Arts Appreciation Night, $30)
- Saturday, Feb. 4 at 2 and 7 p.m.
- Senior citizens’ preview performance is Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 3 p.m. (pre-show discussion and nosh for $10 at the door).
Parent volunteer Steve Laux told Pascack Press on Jan. 17, “This is a high-quality production. The program has been recognized and featured for years in different theater avenues.”
He said, “It’s just putting a great effort on to the stage. We’re really excited about this production in particular because ‘Into the Woods’ is a complex piece. Sondheim is no joke.”
Variety called the Broadway production “radiant,” The Wall Street Journal called it “enchanting,” and The Washington Post described it as “a priceless revival with a perfect cast.”
Sondheim, recalled in the lead of his New York Times obituary, Nov. 21, 2021, as “one of Broadway history’s songwriting titans, whose music and lyrics raised and reset the artistic standard for the American stage musical,” died at his home in Connecticut at 91.
St. Joe’s cast, Laux said, were thrilled to learn they’d landed the rights to mount “Into the Woods.”
“A huge portion of the cast were off-book even before they got to the first rehearsal. They had been listening to the soundtracks and we actually organized a field trip for the cast to see the show. It’s been really fun to watch,” he said.
Laux, who has a son, a junior, in the cast, and is handling outreach for the program, said “The timing of this is fantastic, because the show closes on Broadway, and then then our show opens a within week of it closing so if anybody didn’t get a chance to see it on Broadway, this is a pretty close facsimile to it.”
Head of the class
John Asselta, director of performing arts at St. Joe’s and producer of the show, told Pascack Press on Jan. 18, “We do an educational brochure that has five or six lesson plans so that when grammar schools come to our show, we give it to their teachers and they can run classes when they get back based on the show. And we do that with our teachers here, so when the students come see it, then they do some exercises based on the lessons to be learned from the show.”
He said the Papermill Rising Star program has bestowed St. Joe’s its award “for the high school that’s used their musical for an educational impact better than anyone else in the state — we’ve won that six times.”
And he said Fox television has profiled the program three times.
“We do the high level, and we do things that have a bit of a twist,” he said. “I think people think high school theater is one way, and then when they come to see a show here — because of the level of the talent, the professional people who work with them — they find it is way, way more than just your typical high school theater.”
Off the beaten path
“Into the Woods” is a 1987 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine.
The main characters are taken from “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Rapunzel,” and “Cinderella,” and several others. The musical is tied together by a story involving a childless baker and his wife and their quest to begin a family (the original beginning of the Grimm Brothers’ “Rapunzel”), their interaction with a witch who has placed a curse on them, and their interaction with other storybook characters during their journey.
The musical debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986 and premiered on Broadway on Nov. 5, 1987, where it won three major Tony Awards (Best Score, Best Book, and Best Actress in a Musical for Joanna Gleason), in a year dominated by “The Phantom of the Opera” (1988).
The musical has since been produced many times, with a 1988 U.S. national tour, a 1990 West End production, a 1997 tenth anniversary concert, a 2002 Broadway revival, a 2010 London revival, and in 2012 as part of New York City’s outdoor Shakespeare in the Park series.
Discounts are available for all shows for groups of 10 or more by writing asseltaj@sjrnj.org. Regular tickets are $17 and $23 and are on sale through SJR.Booktix.com or a half-hour before each show. For more information write SJRTheater@sjrnj.org or call (201) 391-7422.