Fresh off Broadway, ‘Into the Woods’ is coming to Philly
The hit Sondheim musical will be in the city Apr. 4-9, 2023
Philly, here’s a reason to be happy ever after. City Center Encores! is bringing its production of the musical, Into the Woods to the city, in April 2023. After running to full houses and garnering widespread acclaim on Broadway, the runaway hit is traveling through the country, making a short pit stop at Kimmel Cultural Campus’ Miller Theater Apr. 4-9 2023.
Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Tony Award-winning musical is a mashup of the greatest hits from the Brothers Grimm including “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Jack and the Beanstalk”, “Rapunzel”, “Cinderella”, and more. In 1987, Into the Woods made its Broadway premiere, bagging Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Book, and Best Actress in a Musical (for Joanna Gleason who played the The Baker’s Wife). The musical’s July 2022 return to Broadway came after two decades since its last run. What started out as a limited engagement, is taking its final bow on Jan. 8, 2023 after two extended runs.
The production that is coming to Philadelphia will be directed, like the Broadway hit, by Lear deBessonet, with Rob Berman serving as music supervisor. Lorin Latarro is the choreographer.
Fresh off Broadway, Montego Glover will be reprising her role as The Witch, who is very protective of her homegrown garden where she grows plenty of greens. “Parsley, peppers, cabbages and celery/ Asparagus and watercress and/Fiddleferns and lettuce...” . She is joined by Stephanie J. Block (The Baker’s Wife), Sebastian Arcelus (The Baker), and Gavin Creel as Cinderella’s Prince/Wolf. Their Broadway colleagues — Cole Thompson (Jack), Katy Geraghty (Little Red Ridinghood), David Patrick Kelly (The Narrator), among others — will also be a part of the touring production. The star of the show, however, remains Milky White, the cow puppet maneuvered by actor Kennedy Kanagawa.
Philadelphia audiences, having enjoyed the Arden Theater’s fantastic Into the Woods production last summer, are already familiar with the musical whose lyrics say, “Though it’s fearful, though it’s deep, though it’s dark,” we have to go into the woods to emerge on the other side, in pursuit of our “happy ever after.”
» READ MORE: Arden’s latest Sondheim musical is a lively ‘Into the Woods’
Tickets for Into the Woods, which is dedicated to the memory of Sondheim, will be available starting Dec. 16 at kimmelculturalcampus.org.
The musical will be making stops in Washington D.C., Boston, Chicago, and other cities on its cross-country tour.