Into the Woods

Written by, Steven Sondheim

Introduction to the work:

Into the Woods takes place in the world of your favorite childhood fairytales including Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, and many more. Act I is centered on a new character, the Baker and his wife on their quest to break the curse over the Baker’s house, set on his father by the Witch, so they can have a baby. This quest takes them into the woods where they separately meet Cinderella, Jack, and Little Red who are fulfilling their own quests as per their classic fairytale stories. Once the characters all obtain what they originally wished for, in Act II their world comes crashing around them with the consequences of the actions they committed to gain their wishes in Act I. This show asks us to be mindful of our choices and our actions and how they may affect others when following the path towards what we truly wish for.

Progression of Light

Challenges and Goals:

Our main goal and challenge with this project was to show a very stark difference in the world between Act I and Act II; the Act I world being more of a storybook fairytale while Act II should feel more realistic. The main way we decided to achieve this through lighting was with time of day and natural light sources, or lack thereof. In Sondheim’s script, he specifically mentions in Act I there are very clear times of day. Because of this we decided to show very clear indicators of what time it was in the woods during Act I using the color and quality of the light coming through the trees. Act II, however, should have none of these things. Sondheim does not mention anything about time of day in Act II, which gave us the idea to completely eliminate this factor once this act began. There would be no clear indication as to where the sun or moon was or even which was in the sky at that time. This was used to create a creepier and more realistic feel, as if the characters were walking in a real wood on a very cloudy day.