Student Players' Into the Woods opens tonight!
The 1987 Tony award winning musical, Into the Woods, opens tonight, Wednesday April 12, and runs through Saturday April 15 in the Mullingar Arts Centre.
Presented by Mullingar Student Players, a musical theatre group for those in transition year and up, Into the Woods is their nineteenth production and previous popular shows include Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Little Shop of Horrors, Sister Act and Le Misérables.
The Players also performed Chicago in 2020 during the Covid 19 pandemic to a maximum audience of 150 people, and count many talented people among their origins, including Niamh Algar, who won an IFTA for Best Actress for her role in The Virtues three years ago.
Into the Woods intertwines the plots of several Brothers Grimm fairy tales, exploring the consequences of the characters' wishes and quests. The main characters are taken from Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, and Cinderella, as well as several others.
The musical is tied together by a story involving a childless baker and his wife and their quest to begin a family, which is the original beginning of the Grimm Brothers' Rapunzel, and their interactions with a witch, who has placed a curse on them, and the other storybook characters during their journey.
Into the Woods debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986 and premièred on Broadway in 1987, where it won three major Tony Awards including Best Score, Best Book and Best Actress. A Disney film adaptation, directed by Rob Marshall, was released in 2014. The film grossed over $213 million worldwide, and received three nominations at both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards.
Based on a book by James Lapine, the music and lyrics are by American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theatre.
The cast
In the Mullingar Student Players production, Cinderella is played by Meghan Bates, who has been taking part in shows in Mullingar Arts Centre for over 10 years. Her previous roles include Elle Woods (Legally Blonde), Dorothy (Wizard of Oz), Sharpay (High School Musical), Poor Baby (Whistle Down the Wind), to name a few. Apart from theatre, Meghan also gigs locally and writes her own music, and recently supported local band Some Ones Sons in Whelans.
Ailís Brown, a member of the Arts Centre since she was four, plays Little Red Riding Hood. Her love for musical theatre started when she played young Cossette in the 2014 production of Les Misérables, and was later cast in the Valley of the Squinting Windows adaptation in 2019. Her most recent work includes Oliver in St Finian’s.
Alannah Looby is cast as Jack’s Mother. A member of Mullingar Stage School since the age of eight, Alannah had roles in The Wizard of Oz, The Jungle Book, Aladdin, Legally Blonde, Cinderella, and School of Rock.
Katie Purdue is cast as The Witch, and found her love for stage in primary school when she became a member of the Mullingar Charity Variety Group. Last April she took on the role of Mary Magdalene in the CBS and Loreto TY musical, Jesus Christ Superstar.
Emma Rogerson, who plays Stepmother, has been performing since the age of five. Involved in the Stage School until she was 15, she has been part of the Mullingar Arts Centre for five years. Emma has performed in many productions such as High School Musical, Chess, Chicago, Once the Musical and The Pantomime to name a new. She is currently in UCD studying Mental Health Nursing and is a member of the UCD Musical Society.
Jack is played by Callum Farrell, in one of his first musical theatre appearances, while the Wolf/ Prince is played by Caolan Cleary, who joined Mullingar Youth Theatre last year after several primary school performances and discovered a passion for acting.
Tiernan Foy who joined Mullingar Youth Theatre last year, is cast as the Prince. His previous work includes the lead role of Dewey Finn in School of Rock, which was staged by St Joseph’s Rochfortbridge.
Finn O’Reilly, a member of Mullingar Stage School since he was five, is the narrator for Into the Woods. Finn is also a keen dancer and has participated in four pantos, as well as playing the lead role of The Cat In The Hat in Seussical The Musical with the Junior Stage School last June.
Tickets available at 044 93 47777 and mullingarartscentre.ie