Into the Woods in San Diego 1986

I just closed a run of Into the Woods. During our run, I started researching the evolution of the show as a side project. I am fascinated by the changes made to the show during the San Diego run, because the final project seems so well-put together, so intuitive, that I initially had a hard time believing that the show didn't just arrive fully-formed at the first draft. I've gotten ahold of some documentation from the out of town run: there's a video floating around the internet somewhere I took a look at, and a friend sent me a cd containing an audio capture. I also have a recording from the first Broadway Preview, which has quite a few textual anomalies, including Boom Crunch and plenty of cut dialogue. The two San Diego documents are clearly from different performances but they have more or less the same script, with only a few minor changes, so it doesn't really help me figure out "what happened when". So I thought I would ask the fine members of Broadwayworld who have memories of this production (which I don't since...uh...I wasn't actually alive at the time).

I have five questions that are kind of burning a hole in my skull:

1. In Look I Made a Hat, Sondheim states the Three Little Pigs were part of the show during this early phase, but I can't find any documentation confirming exactly how. Does anyone have any memory of how they were involved? Was it just a walk-on, similair to their appearance in the 2002 revival, or was it more involved?

2. In most cast lists I've found (including my 1986 copy of Theatre World, which was among the books I inherited from a friend of my mother's) the cast list for the San Diego run has not one wolf but three: The one who sings "Hello Little Girl" (played by John Cunningham, who was also the Narrator and Stewart), and two other wolves played by Merle Louise and Joy Franz (Granny/Cinderella's Mother/Giant and Stepmother, respectively). This intrigues me, especially due to a line cut from the finished script: Little Red, when she is discussing her new cape late in act one, mentions that she and her granny had to defend themselves from another wolf, and refers to this wolf as female. Does anyone know what these two She-wolves were about?

3. Does anyone know if, by the time the show closed, the Baker's Wife had progressed from dying by Poison Apple to getting crushed by the Giant?

4. When was Children Will Listen put into the show? For Broadway previews or during the San Diego run? The Documentation I have has a very different act two finale, which does not include this song.

5. A related question pertains to the fate of the cut song Second Midnight: The documentation I have from San Diego does not include the song, but there is a recording I have found on Youtube of the song featuring what is very clearly the Broadway cast (the Witch is audibly Bernadette Peters). Was this song cut from the show in San Diego or tried out in previews?

These are the questions I'm really hoping to answer but I would gladly welcome any recollections from those who saw Into the Woods either in San Diego or in Previews on Broadway. Or, in fact, recollections from those who saw the Broadway production at all. Thanks for your help, in advance.

wow, didnt know about lots of stuff mentioned above! would you be able to put the scripts up online? would love to look at them

in the meantime, if you listen to sondheims interviews with the american theatre wing, and other creatives who were involved in it, i remember them talking about second midnight and the change from boom crunch to last midnight. If i remember correctly bernadette said the first time she sang last midnight was on the night critics were in, the whole cast were in the wings watching her!

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I was sure Second Midnight WAS in San Diego by the end, but not Children Will Listen (which of course comes from Second Midnight.) But it's been a very long time since I listened to my live recording.

I had never heard about the She-Wolves... The Three Little Pigs were basically a walk on, though. I beliueve Snow White had a bit more material (setting up the poison apple the Wife finds) and wasn't just in the ending.

I'm sure you know this, but there was a demo recording made from a handful of songs cut. Most (all?) of it has been released commercially: The Into the Woods OBCR reissue has a different Giants in the Sky, Back to the Palace (ie not Steps of the Palace) and Boom Crunch. And on the Sondheim box set The Story So Far they have Have to Give Her Someone, Interesting Questions and Second Midnight.

These recordings are another question--the booklets say they were demos for the show, but I've heard from several reliable sources (here?) that they were done for a planned children's storybook audio release in the late 80s that never happened--which begs the question why they returned to many earlier versions... (Sondheim isn't a ton of help--the Into the Woods section of Look I Made a Hat seems to be missing the most materail of any of the shows listed.)

-And the cut I really miss: at the end, the new 'family' is being organized, and the Narrator says, "And the child cried often..." Baker: "Yes. You did. Now, finish telling the story, son." Still gives me goosebumps.

Oh wow, what a cool twist!

Updated On: 7/3/13 at 10:36 PM

It really does sound like all the changes were just made to streamline and clarify plot--which for a show like this, really does make sense. (Darque the narrator is dropped, not eaten :P )

"and the Narrator says, "And the child cried often..." Baker: "Yes. You did."

Yeah, this is one of my favorite cut moments from the show.

This show is fairly well documented on video from it's performances in '86, to the very early Broadway previews and all the way until right before it closed, so it's easy (and absolutely fascinating) to trace and watch the evolution of this show. I've said before that if you go back and look at it before it was frozen and while it was still changing, it's not a "great" show. It's a decent show with great music (and some really bad songs that were thankfully cut) but you can tell the audiences just weren't buying it. Reactions were tepid, at best and that can be blamed on the shows pacing. For a show that in the PBS video captures every single thing that makes it (for me) the absolute perfect show and Sondheim's best ever, the early incarnations of it just aren't great.

But even looking at the 2nd Broadway preview of the show (only 3 or so weeks before it officially opened and was frozen) it's absolutely nothing like the show we know today. Those few weeks must have been absolutely agonizing for the cast since SO much of the show was changed in that short time. And it's really a testament to Sondheim & Lapine for knowing exactly what wasn't working and exactly how to fix it. Those two are geniuses.

Sort of off topic, but when are we gonna get another one of these.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frvYKha626M - "Witch's Transformation" Pre-Broadway (optional link + link title not working for me...sorry!)

Getting back to the narrator/Baker's son Mash-up moment:

I had read about this, but its so cool to hear how they actually pulled it off. In the performances that had this is, was he still killed by the Giant? What was the timeline? Killed by the Giant, revealed to be the Mysterious Man, resumes narrating at the end and is revealed to be the son?

I wonder if those behind the London/Delacourte production knew about this when they came up with the twist at the end of their production?