Seacoast Rep to Stage INTO THE WOODS

Award-winning director Bob Vernon returns to the stage in May after a four-year hiatus to lead the Seacoast Repertory Theatre's production of Into the Woods, the Stephen Sondheim musical that weaves well-loved Grimm's fairy tales into a provocative fantasy of dreams and their consequences.

Vernon came back for the opportunity to put on a play by a dramatist he calls a modern Shakespeare. "I love the musical and I love the writer. I think Stephen Sondheim is our Shakespeare. In a good way it is challenging to the viewer," Vernon said.

Into the Woods opens May 22 at the Rep and runs through June 14. It is the second Sondheim musical in two years at the theater, after the successful run of Sweeney Todd in 2013.

Vernon directed Into the Woods for a Prescott Park Festival production in Portsmouth 2005. The Seacoast Rep's version differs in a way that stimulates the cast and the audience. The Seacoast is staging the musical with 10 actors, half the usual number, playing the full roster of characters. Actors play two, or even three characters, sometimes switching roles within a single scene.

This makes it easier for the audience to play make believe, Vernon said. "We're not going to hide the transformation from one character to another. That's going to happen right in front of the audience as an actor just switches a hat, changes their voice and changes the way they carry their body."

Challenges such as these can excite the imaginations of audience members in new ways, even for those who enjoyed the last year's big-screen version of Into the Woods. "The theater is always happening right this moment. And in that way theater has something very unique from TV and film," Vernon said.

Vernon got his first theater job with the Seacoast Rep in the mid 1990s, and last directed in 2011, when The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee won a Spotlight Award for Best Musical. After that he took a break from the theater, with a mission, he said, "to make a more of a difference in the world." He works for a marketing agency, and devotes his spare time to issues including politics, social justice and local sourcing.

New management at the Seacoast and the challenge of Sondheim drew Vernon back. "They offered a lot of hope and a lot of positivity," he said. "I wanted to contribute to that in any way that I could. Coming back has been really delightful."

The cast, he said, has been especially rewarding, as actors rise to the challenge of multiple roles. Among the actors is Jamie Bradley in a leading role as The Baker. Bradley also starred in Putnam County, and won a Best Actor award for his role. Said Vernon of his cast, "I am asking them to do a production of Into the Woods that is unlike anything any of them has seen. That requires a great deal of faith and trust," Vernon said. "I got incredible lucky with the group that I ended up with."

Despite his return to the theater Vernon has not had to put his social justice interests on the back burner or forget his ambition of making a difference. Into the Woods, he said, tells a vivid moral tale. "There are great lessons to be learned from the mistakes of acting only on our own behalf, and also great lessons to be learned from giving up a piece of our own dream for the betterment of others and coming together as a community."

"I hope that the audience comes away with maybe a greater sense of empathy for each other and for themselves and their families and their community," he said. "I think ultimately the point of all art is to create empathy in the viewer."

Into the Woods runs May 22-June 14 at the Seacoast Rep, 125 Bow Street in Portsmouth, NH. Shows are Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, and Saturday and Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are available through the Seacoast Rep Box Office, or online at www.seacoastrep.org.

Photos by Michael Winters Photography

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