Following their success at the Tony Awards on Sunday night, where they won Best Musical Revival for The Color Purple and Cynthia Erivo won Best Actress in a Musical, the Menier Chocolate Factory announces that rehearsals start this week in New York for innovative and ground-breaking theatre company Fiasco’s enchanting reinvention of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s masterpiece Into The Woods. Both Sondheim and Lapine will join the company in rehearsal this week. The production opens on 12 July 2016 at the Menier, with previews from 1 July, and runs until 17 September. Casting of the original US company has also now been confirmed.
Using ten actors, multiple musical instruments and boundless imagination, this fairytale classic is reimagined as never before. This production, which received the 2015 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Revival, will include the original US cast – Jessie Austrian (Baker’s Wife), Noah Brody (Wolf/ Cinderella’s Prince), Paul L. Coffey (Mysterious Man), Andy Grotelueschen (Milky White/Rapunzel’s Prince), Liz Hayes (Jack’s Mother/Stepmother), Claire Karpen (Cinderella/Granny), Patrick Mulryan (Jack/Steward), Vanessa Reseland (Witch), Ben Steinfeld (Baker), and Emily Young (Little Red/Rapunzel).
Featuring the timeless songs Children Will Listen and No One Is Alone, this Tony Award-winning musical was recently made into a successful Disney feature film starring Meryl Streep, James Corden and Emily Blunt.
Stephen Sondheim (b1930) is one of the world’s greatest living composer and lyricists. His works include Saturday Night, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park With George (Pulitzer Prize), Passion, Assassins and Road Show. Sondheim also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story, Gypsy and Do I Hear a Waltz? He is the recipient of multiple awards, including 8 Tony Awards – one of which was a Lifetime Achievement Award, 7 Grammys and an Academy Award for Best Song for Dick Tracy, and was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters (1983).
James Lapine (b1949) also collaborated with Sondheim on Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods – he also directed the original productions. His other librettos include Falsettos, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and A New Brain. Lapine is also a director and playwright.
Fiasco Theater is an ensemble theatre company created by graduates of the Brown University/Trinity Rep M.F.A. acting program. Led by co-Artistic Directors Jessie Austrian, Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld, their previous productions include Cymbeline (TFANA/Barrow Street) Measure for Measure (New Victory), The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Folger/TFANA) and Twelfth Night. Cymbeline was presented Off-Broadway twice, for nearly 200 performances, and was honoured with the 2012 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Revival.
This production is presented in association with Michael Harrison Entertainment and David Ian Productions.
