One of Stephen Sondheim’s most popular musicals — “Into the Woods” — will open this weekend at Countryside Community Theatre at North Scott High School, Eldridge. It’s special for many in the cast and crew, in this 40th-anniversary season at CCT.
The 1987 show (recently revived on Broadway) has a book by James Lapine, which intertwines several favorite storybook characters, connecting them with an original story, for a timeless, yet relevant, piece.
The plot follows a baker (AJ Weber) and his wife (Megan Warren), who wish to have a child; Cinderella (Emily Winn), who wishes to attend the King’s Festival; and Jack (Casey Scott), who wishes his cow would give milk. When the baker and his wife learn that they cannot have a child because of a witch’s curse, the two set off on a journey to break the curse. Everyone’s wish is granted, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later with disastrous results.
Directed by Circa ’21 veteran Tom Walljasper, music directed by Ryan Riewerts and pit orchestra conducted by Nathan Windt of St. Ambrose University, there were 85 people who auditioned for the 25-person cast.
Prime roles include Walljasper’s daughter Krianna as Little Red Riding Hood; Jenny Winn (Emily’s mom) as the Witch; David Wilkinson as Cinderella’s Prince; Croix Baker as Rapunzel’s Prince; Katherine Zerull as Jack’s mother; Sofia Magalhaes as Rapunzel; Chris Tracy as the Narrator; Topher Elliott as The Wolf and David Bonde as Mysterious Man.
Krianna said this week she didn’t have a special “in” with her dad when she auditioned.
“I proved myself,” she said Tuesday. The last show Tom Walljasper directed was “Mr. Scrooge,” a children’s production at Circa in December 2019.
Krianna has been in a few shows with him at the Rock Island dinner theater, and was actually in the chorus of Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” (starring Tom and his wife Shelley) at the former Harrison Hilltop in Davenport in 2011.
“This is kind of fun, because he’s been my softball coach my whole life,” Krianna said. “It’s kind of like the same.”
“It’s actually very similar,” she said of directing a show versus coaching. “He doesn’t always tell you that you’re gonna do a good job. That’s not the person he is, from the actor’s point of view. He wants to be told what you can do better.”
“He likes to push us, because when he sees it, he knows there’s something there and he won’t let it go,” Krianna said.
Casey Scott (a 2021 Davenport North graduate) was to play the Baker in his high school’s 2020 production of “Into the Woods,” which was canceled due to COVID.
“Ryan is music directing so I came back for that,” Scott said of Countryside. “They had me sing the cut for Jack and the rest is history. I’m having a lot of fun.”
“I love playing Jack,” he said. “He’s just such a kid, and you get to do ridiculous things all the time.”
Krianna said her favorite part of Little Red is “she’s just a sweet girl everybody loves in the beginning.”
“She goes through something pretty serious, that makes her a badass,” she said. “She has to figure life out really fast, and I like that a lot because a big acting thing is – like my dad says, ‘This show is a beast and you have to not only warm up your voice, but warm up your body and your mind.’ It’s really hard to be so happy and then, boom, you hit a wall and your world comes crashing down. I love that kind of stuff, though; that’s why I act.”
The Wolf is trying to take advantage of Little Red, and it’s up to the audience how to interpret that, Krianna said, noting she learns to be independent and stand up for herself.
“My favorite line in the whole show, and I live by this since we started the show is, ‘Nice is different than good’,” she said. “Just because someone is nice to you doesn’t make them a good person.”
Auditioning for her dad was hard, since Krianna said she always wants to make her parents proud.
“They’re so good themselves, like I want to meet that,” she said, noting she would take any part to be in the show. “As long as I get to see him thrive and do what he loves, I want to be a part in the process.”
As an actor, Krianna said she’s always influenced by her dad, and the many shows she’s seen him in.
A Winn-Winn situation
Emily Winn is thrilled to be in the show with her mother Jenny, who plays the Witch (a role originated on Broadway by Bernadette Peters).
“I love this role so much and I see a lot of myself in her,” she said of Cinderella, noting “Into the Woods” is her favorite show and she hasn’t done community theater in a while.
“Tom and Ryan are two of my favorite people; my mom wanted to be in it and I really wanted to be in a show with her before I graduate,” Emily (who’s going into junior year at Davenport Central) said.
Her first musical, when she was 8, was with her mom at Music Guild in Moline – “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” in June 2016. That was the same summer Music Guild actually did “Into the Woods” (that July).
Emily’s last Guild show was “Shrek” in 2018, when she played young Fiona, and Megan Warren was adult Fiona. Emily loves Anna Kendrick, who played Cinderella in the 2014 “Into the Woods” movie (filmed when in her late 20s).
Emily and Jenny dealt with family tragedy in early July, when Jenny’s mom (Charlene Engstrom) died on July 6. The cast thoughtfully gave mementos to them, to remember Char and the show by.
“We felt the show was really representative of love and loss, so we collectively purchased wooden plaques made by a gentlemen known by one of the cast members,” said Katherine Zerull. They depict a tree with two people holding hands (one is taller and one smaller), with the quote (from the show) “Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood,” she said.
That is from the famously moving ballad toward the end of the show, “No One Is Alone,” which is started by Cinderella, with especially poignant lyrics for the Winn family:
Mother cannot guide you.
Now you’re on your own.
Only me beside you.
Still, you’re not alone.
No one is alone. Truly.
No one is alone.
Of her mom, Emily said: “She is just my best friend, and I love her so much. It’s so great to watch her do something she loves.”
“When there’s a part for her that she wants, it makes her so happy,” she said of Jenny. Emily made her own Music Guild “debut” when her mom was pregnant with her as Sally in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (spring 2006).
“I have grown up watching her on stage,” Emily said. “I have grown so much since I was 8 years old. We don’t do much together in this show.”
A different take on Cinderella
Zerull played the Fairy Godmother in Music Guild’s 2022 production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein “Cinderella” (which premiered in 1957 on TV).
“It’s such a completely different territory,” she said compared to the Sondheim. “What’s really lovely about the Rodgers & Hammerstein version is that it’s classic fairy tale, and it fulfills that classic fairy tale vibe.”
“Into the Woods” is so different because “what happens after ‘ever after’,” Zerull said. “It’s a really clear line of like, we all have wishes and wants and desires, but what do they actually end up being? And do we actually want what we wish for, and what does that mean?”
In the Lapine/Sondheim version, the story explores a lot more of Cinderella’s humanity, she noted.
The show takes on extra weight and meaning given everything the theater community survived with COVID, which decimated the industry among so many parts of society.
“Theater is precious and to have lost it for a period of time is and was devastating to so many,” Zerull said. “And to have it back is a gift. It really is focused on storytelling. Our job is storytellers, to bring something to life.”
When COVID shut down the world, people turned to stories and entertainment in its varied forms.
“Theater is a type of storytelling that is intimate,” Zerull said. “It comes alive in front of you. To have lost that and gain it back is something we should all never forget.”
“I have really loved this show. The music is so collectively brilliant that just being a part of the show is something I’ve always wanted to do,” she said of “Into the Woods.”
“I am really excited to do this part,” Zerull said. “My favorite part of her is that she’s human and my favorite part about every one of the characters is that they’re human. No one is perfect; we all make mistakes.”
A show about family
Jack’s mother, and other characters are all “just figuring out how to love people,” Zerull said. “Or cows,” Scott joked.
“It’s a show about love and family and friends, and new family,” Zerull said. “It’s who we choose as family, and that’s a really powerful thing.”
“Doing something like this together requires unity,” she said of the close-knit cast.
“I have no doubt in my mind that anyone I’m on stage with in this show would have my back if I ever forgot something,” Krianna said.
“We’ve all got each other’s back in a really beautiful way,” Zerull agreed.
The full cast has not rehearsed all together until about three weeks ago.
Emily appreciates working with a cast of varied ages (compared to high school) and loves being in another show with Croix Baker, who graduated Central his year. He played Prince Eric to her Ariel in 2022’s “Little Mermaid,” and they both were in this past spring’s “Rock of Ages” at Central.
Both Emily and Croix also qualified for the national Jimmy Awards (she last year, he last month), where they both got to work with Broadway professionals and perform in a showcase at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre.
They were at “Into the Woods” rehearsal when the Jimmys showcase was happening in New York (Monday, June 26), and Emily had her phone propped up backstage to catch peeks of the livestream.
“I was supposed to be going on, and we were watching it,” and Emily screamed when Croix was named the first semi-finalist. “I called him the second he got off stage and I gave the phone to David, who plays Cinderella’s Prince. I was so excited.”
“He’s just so incredible,” Emily said of Croix. “I am so fortunate, since ‘Little Mermaid,’ that we can grow off each other. Watching him perform, it inspires me to do better and this is just a great part for him.”
“I love high school shows because all my friends are in it,” Emily said. “This obviously is just for fun, but high school theater, you have something to prove. This I have been looking forward to since I heard they were doing it here.”
“I love this cast more than any show I’ve been in. Everyone has been so lovely,” she said. “The college kids treat me like one of them, which is awesome.”
“This is a cast where we inspire each other,” Zerull said.
“Into the Woods” will be performed at North Scott High School in Eldridge at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday (July 28-29, plus Aug. 4-5), and 2 p.m. Sundays, July 30 and Aug. 6. Tickets are $16 each, available HERE.
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