Into the Woods premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on November 5, 1987, with book by James Lapine and direction by Lapine. The published text appeared from Theatre Communications Group. The show ran 765 performances and was revived on Broadway in 2002 and 2022. A Disney film adaptation appeared in 2014.
Act One interweaves four Grimm fairy tales (Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel) with an original story: a childless Baker and his Wife must gather four items (a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, a slipper as pure as gold) to break a Witch’s curse. By the act’s end, all wishes are granted: the traditional “happily ever after.”
Act Two destroys the happy endings. A giant’s wife descends the beanstalk seeking revenge for her husband’s death. Characters die. Marriages collapse. The Baker’s Wife is killed. The survivors must learn to live without the certainty that fairy tales promise — must accept that “no one is alone” but also that “witches can be right, giants can be good.”
The show’s commercial success (relative to Sondheim’s other work) derives from its accessibility — the fairy-tale frame makes the sophisticated thematic content (the failure of wish-fulfillment, the inevitability of moral compromise, the necessity of community) emotionally available to audiences who might resist it in a more abstract form.
Collecting Into the Woods
Original cast recording (RCA Victor, 1988): CD/LP.
Market values:
- Original cast LP, sealed: $20–$50
- Signed by Sondheim: $150–$400