The Miami University theater department is preparing to put on its final show of the 2012-2013 season. Opening Thursday, Into the Woods will run for two weekends and includes a number of students from different majors in the cast.
Into the Woods is a musical by Stephen Sondheim that puts together a number of classic fairytale stories using two added characters, the Baker and his wife. In the first act they strive to find a way to have a child go into the woods to collect ingredients to break a curse.
According to director Gion DeFrancesco, an associate professor in the theater department, the second act shows what happens after people get their wishes.
"Their actions in act one complicate things and put them in danger in act two," DeFrancesco said. "They ultimately become more human through the course of journeying. The two-dimensional characters become three-dimensional."
The new take on classic stories allows students to form interesting characters.
"Act II is a lot about what happens when you finally get your goals and what happens when they're threatened, what happens after happily ever after," junior Grant Lemasters said, who plays the Baker. "The Baker kind of ties everything together, not really in the narrator sense but because he has to go to all of the other characters to get stuff, so he's more like hub."
Playing his wife is senior Grace Eichler, president of the student organization Stage Left.
"All of the other characters have background fairytales to fall back on," Eichler said. "Grant and I had to create our own story."
Having the familiar characters can sometimes hamper the development of characters, as some actors have found. According to Max Jansen, a sophomore vocal performance major, playing Rapunzel's prince meant changing his perception of the stories.
"Because we all know the stories, [Matt and I] played the princes as nicer than what Gion wanted," Jansen said. "The princes are nice, but they have sinister, ulterior motives... but that's what's interesting about the show. You make extraordinary characters into real people."
Neither Jansen nor Eichler are theater majors, but both have been involved in shows before. Both said that they appreciated having a director that was on faculty.
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"We always bring in guest directors for the opera, so it's nice to have someone that's around as the director," Jansen said.
Eichler reflected on her experiences in Stage Left as a comparison.
"One of the advantages of being in a department show is that you get to rehearse on the stage that you're going to perform on," Eichler said. "It's also refreshing to get measured for a show rather than going out to buy my own costumes."
A major draw to the students that auditioned was that it's a Sondheim show.
"Stephen Sondheim is an important figure in musical theater," DeFrancesco said. "It's important to expose students to his work. Of his works, this is the most fun and really creative for actors who can sing."
Each student brought a different experience with the show to his or her work.
"All of [Sondheim's] shows are really singable for someone that's classically trained," Jansen said. "Of course, you have to throw out some of your training for a musical... but I really missed working with the text."
Though Lemasters has been in department shows, this will be his first musical at Miami.
"I was drawn to the show because I haven't done any Sondheim before," Lemasters said. "I also haven't done a show with my sister [who plays one of the step-sisters] since high school and I knew she wanted to audition for this show as well."
The show has a strong message for students at Miami.
"The woods are kind of like life," DeFrancesco said. "[The show] is really about growing up and coming to terms with things that go wrong in life... one of the points is that you never really learn who you are, always discovering new things because the world is changing around you."
Despite the recognizable stories, the audiences may not expect the way in which the story progresses.
"Just because people are familiar with the characters doesn't mean they won't surprise you," Lemasters said.
Into the Woods runs 8 p.m. April 18 to 20 and 25 to 27 and 2 p.m. April 28. All performances will be in the Gates-Abegglan Theater in the Center for Performing Arts. Tickets are $6 for students and $9 for adults.
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