The complexity of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods encouraged Waynesboro Players director Jennifer Vaughan to bring it to the Black Box Theater at Blue Ridge Community College.
“This show has always been something that’s intrigued me,” Vaughan said. “I’ve never really been sure I fully understood what Sondheim was trying to say.”
She thought that if she directed the show for the Waynesboro Players, it would help her better understand the story.
Into the Woods is her first time directing a Sondheim production.
“I wanted to take on that challenge also,” she said.
The Black Box Theater at BRCC also presented a perfect space for a show with a princess in a castle tower and a giant. Sondheim’s production presents staging and character challenges for a director and her actors.
“I really got to see what a genius he was with this,” Vaughan said. Sondheim’s included a lot into one production and directed it enabled her to explore what the playwright was trying to say and also find humor in the story.
However, Waynesboro Players has turned Into the Woods “into our own personal production of Into the Woods. Not like others you’ve seen. I think its unique and I’m proud of [the actors] for that.”
She said she hopes the audience takes away the moral lessons, but also enjoys the show.
“We aren’t ever alone,” Vaughan said of one of the lessons from the production. However, consequences to our actions do exist. “There’s so much packed into it and I think audience members probably come away with different things depending on what strikes a cord with them.”
For Vaughan, the production drives home the message that nobody is alone after experiencing a loss and to think about choices and consequences.
Dr. Renee Huff of Verona said that portraying “the witch” in Into the Woods is “a dream role” for her that she expected not to come true because she was retired from acting.
A trained opera singer, Huff privately teaches voice, piano and guitar for K through 12 and college students. She is also music director at First Presbyterian Church in Staunton.
The “epitome of nice,” Huff, 60, said that being mean on stage as “the witch” is a challenge for her personally.
“Be cautious what you wish for,” Huff said of what she hopes audience members take from seeing the show. “Because I think wishes do come true, but they are not free.”
She said that is Sondheim’s production.
“This show will rip your heart in two, but it makes you appreciate life,” Huff said.
After earning a degree in acting at JMU, Zach Koops of Bridgewater returns to the stage after a five-year hiatus. He last performed in a Vaughan-directed performance of Curtains at ShenanArts.
As “the Baker” in Into the Woods, Koops, 40, said he has prepared by drawing on his experience as a husband and a father of three boys to understand his character’s yearning for a family.
Koops said “the Baker” is immature in the beginning of the production in his experience in the woods compared to the other characters, yet he faces challenges and overcomes them, such as killing the wolf.
“He deals, I think, with every emotion people deal with every day: fear, longing, rejection, confusion,” Koops said.
“The Baker” is a dynamic character and Koops draws on real life to bring him to the stage.
“To me, ‘the Baker’ is every one of us,” he said. “So much so that I try to connect with the audience.”
He hopes audience members take away from the show that sometimes you can do better than what you think you want in life. He also hopes the audience has a good time and is able to think of the show beyond being a fairy tale.
“Hold tight to the things that you have cause you don’t know when they’re going to be gone. And, with that, in moments of despair, the feelings of despair or the experience of despair or of hopelessness aren’t meaningless,” Koops said.
Rachel Green of Fishersville brings “the Baker’s wife” to the stage. Audiences have previously seen her in The Sound of Music and The Marvelous Wonderettes at ShenanArts. She is a 6th grade English teacher at Wilson Middle School.
She said that preparing for her role has been interesting because she has loved the show for a long time. She had to unlearn what she knew about “Into the Woods” and reteach her brain the dialogue for her character. The production also has more lines than any other show she has acted in. She listened to the soundtrack a lot.
“I think this show at its core really tackles doing difficult things for the right reasons,” she said. “So, I hope that by the end that message kind of carries through.”
In Act 2, the characters are tested and must live with the consequences they made in Act 1. Everyone ends up with what they need, but not necessarily with what they want.
Green said she also hopes that audience members take away the realization that a profound amount of theater and musical talent lives in the area and performs in local community theaters.
“And I think that’s really special, being a part of something that everyone is just doing it because we love it,” Green said.
Tickets are available online. Performances are scheduled for Friday, October 18 and Saturday, October 19, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, October 20, 2024 at 3 p.m.
Waynesboro Players will perform Into the Woods at Blue Ridge Community College’s Fine Arts Center, 1 College Ln., Weyers Cave.
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Rebecca Barnabi
