Moonlight Stage Productions first presented Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical “Into the Woods” production back in 1990. That was long before Steven Glaudini became Moonlight’s producing artistic director in 2012. But he remembers that staging well.
“I came to see friends who were in it in 1990,” he said. “Little did I know that the woman I would eventually marry was (playing) the Witch. She’d auditioned for Little Red Riding Hood and they gave her the Witch.”
That young performer was Bets Malone, who all these years later is playing the Witch character again in Moonlight’s new and third (after 1990 and 2001) production of “Into the Woods” on Vista's Moonlight Amphitheatre stage.
“This is my fifth ‘Into the Woods’,” said Malone, who has also directed a youth production of the musical and starred in a benefit “In Concert” version of the show five years ago. “They’ve been spaced out three, four, five years in between. Every time you return to this material you’re at a different place in your life. It’s fascinating how things resonate with you differently every time you reintroduce yourself.”
"Into the Woods" was developed, and made its world premiere, at San Diego's The Old Globe in 1986. It would go on to Tony Award-winning acclaim on Broadway, numerous revivals and productions around the world since, and a commercially and critically successful film adaptation. The book by Lapine, who directed the Old Globe production, mingles fairy tales including “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Like Lapine and Sondheim’s previous collaboration, “Sunday in the Park with George,” its second act leaps ahead in time and is thematically darker.
“The message is you can wish for the moon,” said Glaudini, who is directing the new production of “Into the Woods,” “but that doesn’t come without consequences.”
Malone interprets the musical’s second act narrative as “coming together as a community and seeking a greater good against a great power. We are in the abyss of that right now. It’s so hard to come together with people you don’t agree with. You have to get through the facade and reach for the humanity.”
This “Into the Woods” ensemble is a star-studded one that also features Sandy Campbell, Larry Raben, Allison Spratt Pearce and Steve Gunderson.
“I kind of fan-girl in the corner at everybody,” said Malone. “It’s a remarkable cast.”
Glaudini is excited, too, that this production will be the first at Moonlight to employ its new LED video wall and, in a major connection to the first Broadway production, his actors will wear original costumes from that 1987-’89 run in New York.
“Bernadette’s (Peters, who played the Witch) name is in Bets’ cape,” Glaudini said. “We’re giving a tip of the hat to what inspired me to make this my business.”
It’s their mutual respect and affection for Stephen Sondheim, who passed away in 2021, that means most to Glaudini and Malone.
“I saw ‘Sweeney Todd’ at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and it changed my life,” Glaudini remembered. “I went out and bought every LP that I could and became obsessed with ‘Company,’ with ‘A Little Night Music,’ with ‘Follies.’ Even ‘Pacific Overtures’ has stayed with me. If it wasn’t for Stephen Sondheim I would not be doing what I’m doing.”
As an actor who sings, Malone says she always seizes an opportunity to be in a Sondheim show.
“There’s no other lyricist like him,” she said. “You just mine for gold in every single song.”
'Into the Woods'
When: Opens Wednesday and runs through May 18. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays (gates open at 6:30 p.m.)
Where: Moonlight Amphitheatre, Brengle Terrace Park, 1200 Vale Terrace Drive, Vista
Tickets : $15-$60
Phone : (760) 724-2110
Online: moonlightstage.com
Coddon is a freelance writer.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune .
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