This was just a moment in the woods— again, please!
165 minutes, give or take an intermission, to be semi exact, and they’ll do it again for 2,475 more minutes over the course of the next three weekends. Give or take, as I chose theatre and the arts not math and numbers. But whichever of your minutes you have to spare over the next several weekends, give them to The Maryland Ensemble Theatre by going to see their production of Into The Woods. Directed and Choreographed by Shea-Mikal Green, with Musical Direction by Taylor Rieland, this wildly unique musical treasure is inspiring and simultaneously nostalgic. There’s a magic being woven right before your eyes, with laughter and mirth, heartache and heart, and a whole bunch of ups and downs all along the way; it’s a wonderful start to The MET’s 2026/2027 main-stage season.
Director Shea-Mikal Green has fabricated a tapestry of childhood nostalgia into the production; it’s a visionary approach to make the show unique and simultaneously true to its Sondheimian nature. Transformative, transportive, and utterly intriguing, loaded with whimsy, true wonder, and a whole lot of ominous and shadow-drenched goodness, this production of Into The Woods takes a step outside of the traditional approach to the show and lets it breathe in a very wondrous strange way that is wholly captivating.
The MET’s uniquely intimate main stage space always presents a challenge to its productions but Green has not shied away from said challenge, rather taking to embracing it wholeheartedly and incorporating it into her vision. The scenery— by way of Scenic Designer Cody James— sets the tone: you’re ‘in the woods’ yet not fully. It’s more like being inside of a dusty, forgotten attic, very specifically a Toy Maker’s attic— not unlike Geppetto or the grandfather from Grandpa’s Magical Toys (of the WeeSing Series.) James has fabricated a set where pieces look almost as if they’re part of miniature clockwork scenes, like little dioramas— including portrait frame windows and trees that grace the back of the play space. And the ladders affixed to the central support beam become an integral part of the theatrical experience, particular for Jack and later our Narrator. James’ is also channeling of the spookier more mystifying aesthetic which often accompanies MET productions (think last season’s The Crucible; Tim Burton has an iconic creepy aesthetic and so too, at times, does MET) and in this approach, the live orchestra (featured on stage and extremely well balanced by sound designer and live mixer Kyle Wolford) is carefully tucked away as if they’ve become denizens of the woods themselves.
There’s even an attic light. A good old-fashioned dangle-bulb with a pull-chain, which the Narrator yanks on to start the journey. This is blending James’ scenic finesse with Lighting Designer Shana Joslyn’s expertise to create a pulsating sense of excitement. And there are so many wonderful moments, both highlighted and shadow-soaked, that grow to fruition that it’s hard to pinpoint the perfect one amidst Joslyn’s creations. But there’s a lot of use of color, particularly red when certain unsavory things are going down, and it all blends brilliantly into the nightmarish dreamscape (or dreamy nightmarescape as it’s truly a glorious blurred line between being half of one and half the other) from the show’s start through to the finish.
Sound, as previously credited to Kyle Wolford, is beyond impressive for this production. Not only because Wolford has the additional challenge of live mixing, one of which he masters deftly, but because of all the ‘Giant’ related effects that arrive, mostly in the second act. And while I’m on that note, all bows and praises must be delivered to Puppet Designer and Master Creator Olivia Pietanza. In all 18 different productions over the last decade and a half, I have never seen the Giant represented in such a way— and I don’t want to give it away too much— but I must say it’s a very hands-on approach (which leas to one of the most hysterical nonsense moments in the show, in my opinion) and eye certainly find it appealing. Pietanza also creates Cinderella’s Father, a handheld puppet, carried by The Stepmother and it’s comedically effective. Milky White can also be chalked up to Pietanza’s puppet mastery and creative brilliance (and I cannot believe I forgot to praise Cody James’ sneaky-slide…there’s a slide built right into the set and it’s delightfully disguised but utilized to great humorous intent!) The whole mysterious, enchanted world of MET’s Into The Woods is enhanced tenfold by its design team, not the least of which is Pietanza, her props, and her puppets.
Rachel Saylor is in a design-team category all her own, responsible for the show’s sartorial selection as the Costume Designer. It’s difficult to find words without doing a novella on each of her concepts; everything looks whimsical and yet grounded in reality. Modern yet timeless, subtle yet grand. I’ve never seen such a cacophonous clash of costume opposites that somehow still manages to work flawlessly as one ensemble of outfits. There are hints of fairytale-core and fantasy components coming into play, also imaginatively playful oversaturation of colors, this is particularly true for the Step-Family, and patchwork muted tones for Jack’s Mother and the Baker’s wife. There is, of course, sparkle and glitz when certain reveals come to light and it must be said that that particular reveal was as technically impressive as what one might expect from those cavernous palatial playhouses, only in half the space and with twice the pizzazz. But the most stunning costume in the menagerie is the chimerical ballgown for Cinderella. It’s like faerie floss met my little pony in Pixie Hollow and enlisted Rainbow Brite’s Sprites to make this ballgown. It’s elegant and whimsical and tasteful and beautiful. (And if it goes missing once the show closes— not it!)
Having a live pit (Musical Director and Pianist Taylor Rieland) on stage, albeit nestled ‘into the woods’ is not only smart but a critically essential component to a successful production of any Sondheim show, but especially Into The Woods. Conducted by Zachary Thompson, who’s also on bassoon, the pit (featuring Rieland on piano, Angelica Ramos on flute/piccolo, Meredith Gersten on clarinet, and Martin Smith on double bass/trumpet) keeps meticulous pacing with the actors on stage, allowing for enhanced energies all around throughout the performance. It also allows for nuance, which when it first appears may seem mysterious but as it evolves, proves it’s sincerely serious. A lilt or a linger, a galloped-up moment of pacing, a subtlety that allows for personalization amongst the characters while still remaining true to the musical scansion is a remarkable feat, which takes the overall production quality from impressive to exceptional.
There is a ubiquitous juvenility in Director Shea-Mikal Green’s approach to the show. It’s like watching children play with toys, though the forgotten lens of the old toymaker, orchestrating his human puppets to life. It’s wondrous strange, delightfully disturbing, enchantingly new and yet oddly familiar all at the same time. The actors in the opening bid of “Prologue: Into The Woods” slowly pop to life like wooden music-box toys that haven’t been wound to life in quite some time. There are even moments when some of them slow their motions back to stillness as their moment in the spotlight fades in that number, giving them that enchanted-animated toy effect. All the while our Narrator orchestras, gestures like Sorcerer Mickey, controlling their actions, running around the set and watching with eager eyes as his creations come to life and tell their tale. It’s a most exhilarating thing to watch and the way Bill Dennison moves (Narrator/Mysterious Man) it’s like seeing Professor Ludvig Von Drake waddling about and conducting a playtime sing-a-long.
Green’s keen understanding of the space makes for a marvelous, musical adventure as well. The built-in slide, the beanstalk pole, all the restrictions and trappings of the compact and intimate play space become a storybook spread of infinite possibilities in her imagination and overall execution. One of the most inspiring moments is when she enacts ‘magic’ with the Witch and the explanation of the curse upon the Baker and his Wife. They hover-suspend in air! It’s WILD. (Even and especially because it’s all human-ensemble mechanisms at work levitating them!) And I’ve already mentioned Green’s conceptualization and actualization of The Giant, the whole hands-on affair is very eye-catching not to mention clever and it does culminate in this absolutely hilarious moment with Dennison’s Narrator which is gut-tickling funny right up until it drops into the gravity of somberness. And Giant or no Giant, each moment throughout the performance has intention behind it. Storytelling first, character development second, layered and dipped in musical theatre, delivered with heart, purpose, and sincerity, whether the moments are cheeky and good-natured fun or devastating and mournful. Green has a vision that she clearly represents among her cast and creative team and it’s vastly impressive.
It is becoming the fashion to approach this character-heavy Sondheim with a reduced cast size and Green adapts to this edition superbly, particularly in her placement of Jack/Steward (the irony of how those two characters relate to one another is quite striking and the differential created by the severely and sincerely talented actor is quite the blow to behold!) And everyone in the performing ensemble is sliding about in moments where they serve as birds or toy-type mechanisms and other components that keep the magic alive and thriving, whether they are principally featured or not. It’s like getting to see the inside of a very complex wind-up music box where all the moving components; it’s fascinating and delightful. Lauren McKenna, who sasses sublimely as The Stepmother (and also voices and handles the Cinderella’s Father puppet), marches with such attitude alongside Lucinda (Katie Martin) and Florinda (Kiersten Gasemy) in their moments as the ‘wicked step-family’ and McKenna has an exceptional handle on her pattered articulation when trying to force her daughters feet into the mystery slipper. Gasemy doubles up at Granny and adapts a wholly hilarious accent, patois and crippling physicality to showcase the difference, even when she’s marching through during the “…Midnight Gone…” cycles and has only a breath to swap from one to the other. And Martin, who plays the nasty Lucinda couldn’t be sweeter when she steps into the role of Rapunzel, melting into the witch’s every word when she’s being sang at.
If there’s an underserved character in this libretto it’s Jack’s Mother (played by the delightfully engaging Molly Parchment.) This production sees her as an unstrung, Rosie-the-Riveter type, who’s trying to hold down the fort without a husband, raise a questionably troubled young lad, and still keep her sanity. Parchment’s facial expressions and overall body language are wholly engaging and loads of fun to watch. And so is her costume upgrade after “Giants in the Sky”, while subtle the bling in everything from her headband to her broom, is just one of those cheeky touches that she embraces as an extension of her character’s existence. And there is something wild about the way she brings the character to life; it defies description in the best way possible and it makes you want Sondheim to have given this character more stage-time.
It’s a far cry from agony when the two comedic crackups bust onto the scene— Matt Baughman, as Rapunzel’s Prince, and Joe Waeyaert as Cinderella’s Prince— and start one-upping each other during “Agony” and its reprise. How Waeyaert keeps a straight face with all of Baughman’s antics and shenanigans, I shall never know but kudos to him for being able to do so. Both are fair of voice and even more fair of comedic timing and overall tomfoolery, with Baughman trying to upstage Waeyaert every step of the way. They are hyper animated, the pair of them, in their princely numbers, and both are doubled up in other roles, with Waeyaert having the traditional track of being the Wolf, which he balances divinely, soft-shoeing right at the line of charming-creeper and truly-unsavory-predator. Baughman, who also plays Milky White, has you fully believing that Heifer has raw emotions as deep and as serious as some of the human characters in the play. And when the pair of them are in ‘prince mode’ Baughman is going to town with his hobby-horse pony, which becomes a recurrent callback series of nonsenses for poor Bill Dennison and whoever has the second pair of coconut shells; it’s hilarious. Waeyaert should also be praised for his slick, charming approach to the Baker’s Wife during “Any Moment” and one can readily see how she ends herself in the predicament in which she enders herself with all his panache in play for that number.
The aforementioned Waeyaert (who gets a lil goodnight kiss on the head from The Narrator once the Wolf is snoring and snoozing soundly in Granny’s bed) plays perfectly against Danielle Carter, who serves as this production’s Little Red Riding Hood. At first Carter felt a little damp in her presentation of the character, and I say that because I’ve been traditionally presented with these boisterous (often bordering on obnoxious) over-the-top bratty, put-on ‘teenage’ vibes when it comes to being introduced to Little Red. But Carter’s initial ‘dampness’ becomes inherently deliberate once you watch her character’s journey (as the title implies) and the way she changes because of it. She’s not bratty, she’s just a kid being sent to Granny’s, she’s not giving main character energy who’s trying to steal focus or thunder from everyone else who’s being introduced and that is such a fresh, hot take that it caught me off-guard. What’s even more impressive about Carter’s ability to make the character start from neutral, is it makes that ‘grows-up-quick’ moment feel exponentially real, inherently deep, and it gives her character a place to expand. Carter’s Red becomes this biting, rough-edged, knife-wielding demon-girl-teen because of what she’s experienced and suddenly this character has depth and layers and dimension and Carter handles it all magnificently.
Matt Harris has an undeniable childlike naivete about his Jack. Which becomes even more endearing when you compare that to his stuffy, hyper-accentuated affectations when playing the Steward. While the Steward features sparingly in this production, those moments where Harris is hard-huffing his ‘w’s and making faces, it’s hilarious. And when you think about what the Stewart achieves, and how that directly impacts Jack…it’s sort of this mind-blowing and simultaneously gut-punching, heartbreaking division of reality that one actor could play both of those roles. There’s a gentleness, a kindness in the way Harris says ‘goodbye’ to Milky White and also a spunk, an eager-eyed glee of discovery when he bounds into “Giants in the Sky.” It’s a cosmic shaker of fun characteristics all rattled around into something silly and fun yet hyper realistic and truthful to the innocence of childhood, especially when watch him receive ‘news’ near the end— watch Harris’ facial expressions as the Baker explains what’s happened, the entire absorption of processing what the means hits his face, slumps into his whole body and then infiltrates his speaking voice; it’s exquisitely remarkable.
Mallorie Stern has the vivacity of a storybook character breathed to life by our Narrator, with the originality of being her own version of Cinderella and somehow balancing that to perfection against the expectations of a Cinderella. It really is tickling to watch her take (carefully choregraphed) spills every time she attempts to flee the ball; she’s actually more of a Goldilocks in those moments, not too clumsy, not too careful, just right in her comedy and authenticity of falling. And her voice is dulcet, delicate, and perfectly suited for singing Cinderella’s songs. There’s a dexterous finesse of intelligence about her which percolates precariously all through “Steps of the Palace” and when she hits the verse about the prince and the pitch, there’s this resigned acceptance both in her facial expressions and in her voice where she subtly acknowledges the true cleverness of the Prince, as if she hadn’t expected such brilliance from him, but that just gives her fuel to up the ante. Stern also provides the singing voice of her character’s Mother, switching up her timber and tone just enough so that you wouldn’t truly know she’s the one singing (with some assist from Kyle Wolford and his live-mixing-mic effects) as she faces away from the audience to sing at her mother in that moment. And Stern partakes in that dizzying Merry-Go-Round of a quartet (yes, technically the Witch is there but it’s Baker/Cinderella/Red/Jack who do all the round-abouting) “Your Fault,” driving the pace with the other three, keeping tempo and articulation at a magnificent and still intelligible fevered rate. She’s stellar, simply put.
He’s been mentioned a good handful of times now, mostly at The Narrator, and that’s largely because as The Narrator, Bill Dennison is the show’s master manipulator, the sorcerer, the controlling grand master, etc. And all of the movement, the fascinating looks, the gestures, the racing around and singing and narrating, truly and thoroughly entertaining, informing, and at times even a little persuasive, they are indeed impressive. But it’s when he takes up the mantle as Mysterious Man (literally donning some extra costume pieces that make him look spooky) that makes you take notice. Dennison’s physicality in the Mystery Man role might be the eighth wonder of the world. It’s no waddle, but it is the jarring, horrifying staccato zombie-shuffle movement, which makes him look like he’s a true haunted spirit that’s somehow ripped itself fresh out of the scenery, like a wood-Ent or trapped Djin. And it amuses the audience thoroughly while simultaneously terrifying the characters in scene. (Again, shoutout to Wolford and his mic effects giving Dennison a little augmented creepiness here.) Hearing him sing “No More”, opposite Jeremy Myers’ Baker is a heartbreaking, tearjerking, whole-soul-searing experience that just shakes you through to your core with its tragic beauty, both in sound and emotional delivery.
Speaking of our Baker, if ever I had to receive bad news, I would truly want Jeremy Myers’ Baker to deliver it to me. When he’s sitting with Jack in this moment near the end, and tells Jack what he tells him, there is this delicate sense of comfort, this sense of ease and peace, even though the news is devastating; Myers just possesses this serenity like he’s peace incarnate and although he’s so sincere and so heartfelt (I want to be clear that this is not one of those “Cheer up, Charlie” false platitude style deliveries) you just get this sense that it’s going to be okay and my words are failing me spectacularly here to explain that about Myers in that moment. Myers possesses an unfathomable emotion depth when it comes to playing The Baker. And the bickering dynamic that he establishes early on with Jennifer Pagaon, as The Baker’s Wife, has such nuance and layering in it that you feel as if these two could have been coupled for all eternity. Myers has animated expressions and vocality to match. And the tumultuous, twisty-turning roller coaster ride that he and Pagano take as this married couple, desperately seeking a child is life-affirming not only because it’s stunningly and strikingly sung and acted but because it feels wholistically real. The change when they hit “It Takes Two” is palpable, the energy shifts dynamically and yet feels so natural. And your heart just breaks when Myers takes up “No More” opposite Dennison. He’s the perfect protagonist, if such a character exists in this Sondheim world.
Pagano, whose voice is equally striking, rich and fulsome, has wonders to explore, physically, vocally, emotionally and she doesn’t hold back when sharing that with the audience. When she shares this one look with Myers during “It Takes Two” it’s like the pair of them simultaneously recognize that marriage is teamwork and the epiphany that they co-create in that moment is sublime. The versatility she possesses, particularly when flipping from frustrating to flustered— much like nice and good, they are two very different things— is extraordinary. And when you observe Pagano in action, be it during “A Very Nice Prince” while she’s trying to hear the story Stern’s Cinderella is telling her whilst attempting to snatch up that slipper as pure as gold, or when she’s having her limerence-dalliance with The Prince during “Any Moment”, you’ll just fall in love with her characterization of Baker’s Wife. She’s the perfect pairing for Myer’s Baker, she fits like an enchanted princess slipper into the role of Baker’s Wife.
One could not be more impressed with Karli Cole as The Witch if one tried. She’s not trying to do Bernadette Peters or any of the other infamous names attached to that role over the years. She’s serving up Karli Cole a la MET and it slays, no question. Cole deftly manipulates her take on The Witch so that the Sondheim purists out there still feel as if they’re getting what Sondheim wrote but it feels wholly and uniquely her own and it’s utterly brilliant. Her vocal prowess is beyond impressive and when she starts out with her ‘garden greens rap’ in the midst of that never-ending Prologue, there is fierce animations in her limbs and her voice, ferocious articulation as she patters perfectly through that section of lyrics, and an overall furious intensity that drives her character from arrival to final moment at the end of “Last Midnight.” When Cole delivers “Stay With Me” there is a vocal intensity like no other, pouring out of her. She becomes the epitome of the misunderstood ‘villain’ in that exact moment (so many witch’s don’t hit it until after the Giant starts stomping around in the second act) and it’s a powerful transition to experience, especially in Cole’s talented hands. The way she approaches that number like a desperate lullaby with truth and raw passion is mind-blowing. And there’s this wild desperation, though in a very different vein, which drives Cole during “Last Midnight” almost like she’s given up the will to exist as the show’s focal point and intends to tear down the scenery as she burns the world to the ground around her. It’s a hot take on the Witch’s finale moments as a whole and Cole nails it superbly.
It’s such a unique concept, such a passionately constructed and delivered show— you must remember that opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, and that the visit of this opportunity— to see such a wondrous re-invention live on stage— shall indeed not last forever. So don’t delay, get your tickets and go to see Into The Woods today.
Running Time: Approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes with one intermission
Into The Woods plays through October 4th 2026 on the Main Stage of the Maryland Ensemble Theatre in the Historic FSK Hotel building— 31 W. Patrick street in downtown historic Frederick, MD. For tickets call the box office at (301) 694-4744 or purchase them online.
