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2022 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Into the Woods is a 1987 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine . The musical intertwines the plots of several Brothers Grimm fairy tales, exploring the consequences of the characters' wishes and quests. The main characters are taken from "Little Red Riding ...
Into the Woods is a witty and whimsical stage musical by composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim and playwright-director James Lapine. A dark comedy, the story of Into the Woods takes inspiration from the more melancholy and frightful elements of original folk and fairy tales—including the deaths of major characters—and features plot elements and figures from the stories of Cinderella, Jack ...
- Meg Matthias
- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Media Adaptations
- Characters
- Themes
- Topics For Further Study
- Style
- Historical Context
- Compare & Contrast
Into the Woods, published in 1986, is a collaborative work by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (story). It was the product of a workshop at Playwrights Horizon in New York City, and was first produced in San Diegoin 1986. Less than a year later, the play appeared on Broadway, where it ran for well over a year. In fact, Lapine hi...
It seems fitting that Stephen Sondheim, the respected composer and lyricist, was born in New York City, where he lives today. On March 22, 1930, Sondheim was born to Herbert and Janet Sondheim, a well-to-do couple who were both in the fashion business. Sondheim was an only child. His parents divorced when he was ten, and he and his mother lived in ...
Act 1
Hard-working Cinderella desperately wants to attend the King's Festival, but her wicked stepmother and stepsisters, Florinda and Lucinda, make fun of her. The stepmother throws a pot of lentils into the fireplace ashes, telling Cinderella she may only go if she gets all of them cleaned out in time. Meanwhile, a poor young man named Jack tries to milk his beloved cow, Milky White, who has stopped producing milk. In another cottage, the Baker and his Wife long for a child they seem fated never...
The 2002 Broadway revival cast recording was released in 2002 by Nonesuch.The 1991 original London cast recording was released in 1991 by RCA Victor Broadway.The 1991 Broadway performance was released on DVD in 1997 by Image Entertainment.Into the Woodswas adapted as an illustrated children's book in 1988 by Hudson Talbott and published by Crown.Baker
The Baker is cursed with childlessness because of his parents, who lived in the same cottage where he and his wife now live. He is hardworking and determined, but he is also stubborn and reluctant to do things that violate his moral standards. He initially tells his wife that he alone will collect the potion ingredients, but he later realizes that he needs her help. The Baker is a dynamic character who grows over the course of the drama, especially after a visit from his father's ghost. Widow...
Baker's Wife
The Baker's Wife is energetic, pushy, and unwavering in her mission to break the spell that has left her and her husband childless. Her moral limits are softer than her husband's, and she pushes him to trick Jack out of the cow they need. She also tricks Rapunzel into lowering her hair, and tries to trick Cinderella out of her slipper. When the spell is broken, and she becomes a mother, she is busy but content. However, she allows herself to be swept away in a romantic moment with Cinderella'...
Cinderella
Cinderella begins and ends the play with the words: "I wish." In the beginning, she wants to be free of her subservient life and go to the King's Festival. With the help of her mother, she goes, but when she attracts the attention of the Prince, she is not sure she wants him. Eventually, he finds her and they wed, and she has the pleasure of seeing the tables turn on her wicked stepmother and stepsisters. But Cinderella's heart remains with her mother because, when she hears that there is tro...
Consequences and Lost Innocence
Into the Woodsis a retelling of the stories of several classic fairy tales. Those stories are already dark, but in Sondheim's and Lapine's hands, they go a shade darker. Little Red Ridinghood learns within the first act about trust, intuition, and the importance of obeying rules. Prior to learning these lessons, she was naïve and expected everything to be all right despite a devious Wolf lurking about tempting her to break rules and tricking her into giving him information. Because of her inn...
Choose two other Sondheim musicals, and look for similarities to and differences from Into the Woods. Can you see elements that characterize Sondheim's style? You may need to watch video recordings...Because the characters are fairy tale characters, they possess certain universal traits. Choose the character to whom you most relate and the one to whom you least relate, and find two more example...What is the psychological meaning of the woods? They appear in many fairy tales and other works of fiction, and they carry a great deal of symbolic meaning. After conducting research on various psy...Fairy tales are not always light-hearted fare. Who were the Brothers Grimm, and how did their names become synonymous with fairy tales? What was the original purpose of such tales, and why did they...Musical
Sondheim wrote music and lyrics for Lapine's story so that Into the Woods would be a musical. The songs in the play accomplish two things. First, Sondheim uses the lyrics to full effect so that they provide background information and character insight, rather than being meant as pure entertainment. In some songs, multiple characters are singing at once, either individually or together, which helps the audience better understand how all the storylines tie together. The songs in Into the Woodsa...
Frenetic Pace
Once the characters and their basic situations are introduced, the play takes on a frenetic pace. Although the action of the story is tied together by the Baker and his Wife looking for the ingredients for the potion, the other characters all have their own side stories going on simultaneously. Because they are all on some kind of mission (taking treats to Granny, selling the cow, etc.), there is a lot going on onstage at all times. That the characters are all interrelated only makes the acti...
Fairy Tale
Sondheim and Lapine imbue Into the Woodswith fairy tale references, characters, and language. The first lines spoken in the play, by the Narrator, are "Once upon a time," and later in the first scene, the Witch says, "I thought…. we all might live happily ever after." These are lines that people associate specifically with fairy tales. Scene 2 opens in the woods, which figure largely in the tradition of fairy tales. Little Red Ridinghood, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel all...
History of Fairy Tales
Myths, fairy tales, and fables have been around since the earliest civilizations. They are a subset of folk tales, differentiated by their inclusion of supernatural elements (magic, talking animals, spells, goblins, and so on) structured around a lesson. The tradition of fairy tales, however, emerged from folk tales and their oral tradition. Tales from ancient Egypt depicted supernatural occurrences as this world and the divine world met. They also depicted a clear separation between good and...
1986: Sondheim and Lapine complete Into the Woods, and the following year it opens on Broadway. The original Broadway production will run 764 performances, and garner numerous Tony Award nomination...1986: When fairy tales were first told, the best that most women could hope for was a good marriage, which explains the prevalence of stories about young girls who find themselves happily betrothed...1986: Although written between 1937 and 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series remains very popular among young adult readers, as does C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series, writ...Oct 20, 2015 · Paperback – Picture Book, October 20, 2015. In this exciting and wholly original book, John Yorke not only shows that there is truly a unifying shape to narrative—one that echoes the great fairytale journey into the woods, and one, like any great art, that comes from deep within—he explains why, too.
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- Abrams Books
- $14.46
Apr 14, 2020 · 4.5 182 ratings. See all formats and editions. Finally Back in Print in Over a Decade, the Lavishly Illustrated Book of Into the Woods, One of the Most-Performed Musicals, by Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. Based on the Grimm Brothers’ most popular folktales, Into the Woods is a reimagining of what ...
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- Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine
Mar 24, 2020 · Sheet music. $6.37 21 Used from $2.39 1 New from $59.99. Finally Back in Print in Over a Decade, the Lavishly Illustrated Book of Into the Woods, One of the Most-Performed Musicals, by Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. Based on the Grimm Brothers’ most popular folktales, Into the Woods is a reimagining ...
- Hardcover
- Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine
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James Lapine wrote the book for and directed the musicals Into the Woods, Passion, and Sunday in the Park with George (all with scores by Stephen Sondheim) and Falsettos, A New Brain, Muscles, and Little Miss Sunshine (all with scores by William Finn). He has written and directed numerous plays, and has received three Tony Awards, five Drama ...
