Sondheim's Into the Woods Kicks Off Maryland Ensemble Theatre's Season
Maryland Ensemble Theatre opens its 2026-2027 mainstage season with a fresh, imaginative staging of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, running through October 4 at the company's Robin Drummond Main Stage in downtown Frederick. Directed and choreographed by Shea-Mikal Green, with music direction by Taylor Rieland, the production takes the beloved fairy-tale mashup and reframes it through a lens of childhood nostalgia, turning MET's intimate black box into something like a forgotten toymaker's attic where wooden figures wake up and tell their story.
The musical weaves together Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel with the original tale of a childless Baker and his Wife, sending every character into the woods in pursuit of a wish. The first act delivers the happily-ever-after; the second reveals what those wishes actually cost. It remains one of Sondheim's most popular scores, dense with wordplay and syncopation, and one of his most emotionally resonant, moving from playful storytelling into a meditation on loss, responsibility, and consequence.
Green's concept is what sets this staging apart. The show opens with the Narrator pulling the chain on a dangling attic bulb, and the ensemble springs to life like music-box toys that haven't been wound in years, occasionally slowing back to stillness as their moments pass. Cody James's scenic design leans into the idea with diorama-like framed windows, trees along the back wall, ladders climbing a central support beam that doubles as the beanstalk, and a cleverly disguised slide that gets put to hilarious use. The live orchestra sits onstage, tucked into the scenery as though the musicians were residents of the forest themselves. Shana Joslyn's lighting shifts the mood from dreamy to nightmarish and back, with deep washes of red arriving whenever something unsavory is afoot. Rachel Saylor's costumes mix modern and timeless, oversaturated color for the step-family, patchwork muted tones for the working-class characters, and a showstopping ballgown for Cinderella. Olivia Pietanza's puppetry brings Milky White, Cinderella's father, and, most memorably, the Giant to life in ways audiences are unlikely to have seen before.
The cast makes the most of a reduced-company approach, with several actors doubling roles to striking effect. Jeremy Myers anchors the show as the Baker, a weary, warm everyman whose journey from neurotic panic to hard-won peace gives the production its emotional center. Jennifer Pagano matches him as the Baker's Wife with a rich voice and sharp comic instincts, and their bickering, loving partnership feels lived-in from the first scene through the turning point of "It Takes Two." Karli Cole's Witch is a vocal powerhouse who makes the role her own rather than imitating any famous predecessor, tearing through the Prologue's rapid-fire patter and delivering a raw, desperate "Stay With Me" and a scorched-earth "Last Midnight."
Bill Dennison pulls double duty as the Narrator and the Mysterious Man, first as a sorcerer-like conductor of the toys' playtime and then as a jarring, spectral presence whose shuffling physicality unsettles the characters even as it amuses the crowd; his "No More" opposite Myers is a highlight. Matt Baughman and Joe Waeyaert are the comic engine of the evening as the two Princes, one-upping each other through "Agony" with hobby-horse antics and coconut-shell callbacks, while Waeyaert also slinks through the Wolf's number on the knife's edge of charm and menace. Danielle Carter offers a refreshingly understated Little Red who begins as simply a kid on an errand and hardens into something sharper as the woods leave their mark. Mallorie Stern is a delicately voiced and quick-witted Cinderella, Matt Harris finds real innocence in Jack, and Molly Parchment makes a scene-stealing case for Jack's Mother as an unstrung, Rosie-the-Riveter type keeping the household together. Lauren McKenna, Katie Martin, and Kiersten Gasemy round out the ensemble as the step-family, with Martin also melting into Rapunzel and Gasemy transforming into Granny.
Rieland's onstage pit, conducted by Zachary Thompson, keeps meticulous pace with the performers and finds room for nuance in a score that rarely forgives a missed beat. The result is a production that honors what Sondheim wrote while feeling wholly its own: funny, spooky, heartbreaking, and inventive from the first pull of the light chain to the final warning to be careful what you wish for.
Into the Woods runs approximately two hours and 45 minutes with one intermission and plays through October 4, 2026, at Maryland Ensemble Theatre, 31 W. Patrick Street, Frederick, MD.