Pieter Toerien Productions and KickstArt Theatre will present James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods at Theatre on the Bay, starting 30 January. Proclaimed as a sleek and sexy beast of a musical, Into the Woods is by turns moody, magical, witty and wise, and promises to offer the exhilarating theatrical experience that audiences have come to expect from Sondheim, the co-creator of musical masterpieces such as Sweeney Todd and West Side Story.

Into the Woods follows the trials and adventures of a baker (Earl Gregory) and his wife (Jessica Sole), whose paths cross with a witch (Kate Normington) and a host of of well-known fairy-tale characters, including Cinderella (Haylea Heyns), Rapunzel (LJ Neilson), Jack (Graham Wicks) and Little Red Riding Hood (Megan Rigby) as they all go into the deep and dark woods on separate quests that intersect with sometimes amusing, sometimes alarming results.

But Into the Woods is no children’s tale. The musical is is a wicked and wonderful cautionary fairy tale for adults that will delight and haunt audiences as it explores what it means to be human, to long for something other, to wish for something more than what you have, and to deal with the inevitable loss and the terrible beauty that this journey through the world offers us.

The show features a dazzling score, with ravishing melodies and seductive rhythms. Boasting one of the cleverest and most complex set of lyrics ever written for musical theatre, this is Sondheim at his very best, offering South African audiences a very rare opportunity to revel in his wisdom and originality.

Directed by Steven Stead and designed by Greg King, the production will have musical  supervision by Drew Rienstra, costume design by Neil Harris and lighting design by Tina le Roux. The company is rounded out by  Dianne Simpson as Cinderella’s Stepmother and Granny, Sarah Richard as Florinda, Ashleigh Harvey as Lucinda, Candice Van Litsenborgh as Jack’s Mother, Zak Hendricks as The Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince, as Rapunzel, Nathan Kruger as Rapunzel’s Prince, Schoeman Smit as The Steward and Michael Richard as The Narrator and The Mysterious Man.

Into the Woods is booking through 2 March, with tickets ranging in price from R175 – R375 available at Computicket. Providing both intellectual and emotional satisfaction, Into the Woods has all the allure of the fairy tale. Both mysterious and whimsical, it tells of love, loss, desire, hope – and revenge. Although its roots are deeply planted in old folk tales, Into the Woods offers a rich harvest of ideas – the kind of production that appears only once in a blue moon.