Through Sun 11/21

Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim’s split personality take on wishes (and why, perhaps, they should not come true), opened last week at Baldwin Wallace University’s Mainstage Theatre in Kleist Center for Art & Drama in Berea. There will be a repeat performances November 17 to 21.

Once again, director Victoria Bussert reminds us why Sondheim’s name is legend in musical theater. The all-student cast (it is double cast with alternating performances each night; I saw the Prince cast on November 10) kept the story moving and the tunes flowing.

The first act is Disney (sunshine and happy birds), and the second half is Grimm (as in the famous Grimm’s fairy tales). Outstanding performances were the norm as these talented actors showed us why maybe we do not know what we want when we wish for things.

For example, in the opening scene, the baker (a charming Dario Alvarez) and his agitated over-worked wife (Amelia Beckham) wish for a child. Children, as it turns out, never listen and are a lot of trouble.

And then there is the muddled Jack (a comic Nic Hermick), who loves his cow but sells it for beans (literally) and angers the giant — thus raining trouble (again, literally) down upon everyone. Eileen Brady, as Little Red Riding Hood, nimbly dances and skips through all her scenes (amazingly, and also literally) singing as she did so.

Lee Price as “Narrator” leads us through the intertwined fairy tales with the air of such a congenial fellow we felt a bit sorry when he left the scene. Scene designer Jeff Herrmann and sound designer Angela Baughman produced dramatic effects with minimal props, especially in the case of the fallen giant.

Music director Matthew Webb led a small ensemble, which lent support to the actors. Kudos should also go to choreographer Gregory Daniels for the lively action shifting from scene to scene and to Tesia Benson who designed costumes for royalty and peasants alike.

For tickets go to performances/into-the-woods.

[Written by Laura Kennelly]