Into the Woods: A Smashing Success

By Grace Deng
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Last Wednesday and Thursday, students from SAS Pudong’s high school performed the acclaimed musical Into the Woods. The performance brought together both middle and high school students for the first musical of the year.
Originally written by acclaimed composer Stephen Sondheim and playwright James Lapine, Into the Woods tells the story of a baker and his wife’s quest to reverse a curse of childlessness placed on them by a witch. On their quest, they meet characters from the well known Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Cindarella.

Despite a couple of mishaps such as flubbed lines, reactions to the musical were overwhelmingly positive. Laughter and clapping echoed through a full house at the Performing Arts Center on both nights, as tickets were completely sold out.

Highlights during the show included 11th grader Maddie Oberle’s stunning dress transformation as Cindarella, 11th grader Carlos Lao and 10th grader Andy Cho as the two Princes’ comedic performance of the well known Into the Woods song “Agony,” and 11th grader Hannah Power’s dramatic portrayal of the witch’s transformation from aging hag to youthful beauty.

Both the cast and the audience were delighted by their experiences with Into the Woods.

“It was really fun to be a part of,” says Rebekah Christensen, an 11th grader who played the dwarf Grumpy. “I met a lot of cool people and made some new friends.”

“Into the Woods was so good,” exclaimed Jason Kang, an 11th grader who went to watch Into the Woods on both Wednesday and Thursday. Joking, he added on that “the real star was the cow, Milky White!