This weekend, Marquette Theatre Company (MTC) will bring classic fairy tales back to life once again. After a successful opening weekend for the cast and crew of Into the Woods, Judi Greene, theatre director, said she thinks the final two shows are likely to sell out.
Greene said she had heard about Into the Woods for a long time and decided to do it because of the current interest with fairy tales in movies and on television. As MTC’s production has grown, Greene said she has become more attached to it.
“I am falling in love with this show,” Greene said. “I’m singing the songs all the time, I’m dreaming about it.”
Greene said the cast and crew have worked very hard to make the production a success. Cast members learned choreography from professional Joe Elvis, and had to learn to sing with Sondheim’s difficult style of music. Greene said because of the difficulty of the music, many high schools wouldn’t even attempt to put on the show, but the members of MTC enjoyed the challenge.
Mary Baker, senior, plays the Baker’s Wife and said she has had to work extremely hard on vocals, more so this year than in the past.
“This show more than any other show, we had to spend a lot of time in vocal rehearsal just because it’s so different and wasn’t just easy to pick up and learn right away,” Baker said.
Baker said they have been working on the show since the second week of school, and the workload increased considerably within the last month before the show as they strung together all the different elements. All in all, Baker said, it has been a rewarding experience.
“It’s awesome to have your friends and family come and enjoy something that you’ve been working night and day on for three months,” Baker said.
Baker said what is unique about Into the Woods is that it’s very dark, which people aren’t necessarily used to seeing with MTC productions, but it also has an interesting balance with comedic moments.
“I have just loved being a part of this show, every second of it,” Baker said. “I think it’s an amazing show, and I think people should come out and see it because their classmates have been working extremely hard.”
Greene said technically, the costumes were complicated and sound has been a struggle. Lighting has about 400 different cues to keep up with, and the set, modeled after one Greene saw in Central Park, was challenging to build.
Sean Cowell, senior, is the set master and designer for the production and said crew work took a solid two months and over a thousand hours of work.
In designing the haunted forest type set, Cowell said Greene gave him a picture which he based the design from.
“I tried to recreate the picture as best I could,” Cowell said.
Cowell said building the set was challenging, “but not enraging.”
Cowell said the crew in general put a lot of work into designing the set, lighting system, lighting style, sound cues and sound effects.
“They have worked themselves to the bone,” Greene said.
All the hard work has resulted in an awesome production, Greene said. After a few sound glitches last weekend, Greene said she had an alumnus come in and revamp the sound system, which has resulted in a noticeable difference in quality.
“I think it’s been a tremendous learning experience,” Greene said. “With educational theatre that’s really what we love to offer our students is a chance to grow.”
Growth is not the only opportunity Into the Woods is giving the cast and crew – the show is also being adjudicated and could be chosen to be performed at the State Thespian Conference in January.
Greene said she is hopeful that the show will be selected for the state conference.
“I have been told this is as good, if not better than, a professional show,” Greene said.
MTC held a matinee show on Sunday, Nov. 11 to benefit the charity Whole Kids Outreach, and they raised enough money to send two children to camp over the summer and received many items that will help families. Greene said this is the first time in several years that they have done a musical as a benefit show, and she thinks she will continue to do so.
“We were really pleased that the audiences were so generous,” Greene said.
Friday, Nov. 16 and Saturday, Nov. 17, Greene said anyone can come and get tickets for $10 at the door.
“If they like music, if they know fairy tales, if they are interested in seeing what the theatre department has been able to do, and they just want to have an enjoyable evening, come see the show,” Greene said. “There’s so much talent in our theatre department and it’s a really quality show.”
