{"id":460429,"date":"2026-09-11T10:30:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460429\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T10:30:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:30:31","slug":"sunnyvale-community-players-into-the-woods-casts-a-spell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460429\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunnyvale Community Players\u2019 \u201cInto the Woods\u201d Casts a Spell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Wilde famously said, \u201cThere are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.\u201d Stephen Sondheim\u2019s and James Lapine\u2019s musical \u201cInto the Woods\u201d sets out to prove Wilde right.<\/p>\n

Sunnyvale Community Players opened the first production of its 58th season, \u201cInto the Woods,\u201d on Sept. 5, and audiences are in for a delightful show in Sunnyvale\u2019s intimate community theater. Director Thomas Times always keeps the show moving, and even the first act\u2019s almost constant set changes don\u2019t slow the pace.<\/p>\n

The cast is uniformly good singers, but three performances stand out. Monty Zinkevich brings a bright and pleasing tenor to Jack (the beanstalk boy). Benjamin Pierson sings Cinderella\u2019s Prince with a formidable bass baritone. The night\u2019s most memorable vocal performance, though, belongs to Christi Waybright as the Witch, whose solo song, \u201cLast Midnight,\u201d brought the house down.<\/p>\n

\u201cInto the Woods\u201d is Sondheim and Lapine\u2019s mashup of familiar Grimm\u2019s fairy tales built around an original story of a baker and his wife who are cursed to be childless by a witch. Act One brings the characters to the happily-ever-after ending where the traditional tales stop.<\/p>\n

SPONSORED<\/p>\n

\"Devid<\/a><\/p>\n

Act Two opens with the song \u201cSo Happy.\u201d But the dissonant orchestra hints that something is amiss in the happily-ever-after world.<\/p>\n

Cinderella is bored on her throne while her prince is off womanizing (later, we\u2019ll catch him in the woods putting the moves on the Baker\u2019s wife). The baker and his wife finally have the baby they wished for, but the baby cries incessantly, and the wife is complaining the house is too small. Rapunzel has gone mad from the many years she was trapped in the tower; apparently the prince couldn\u2019t supply the psychotherapy she clearly needed. The witch gets her wish to become a glamorous and beautiful woman, only to lose her magical powers. Jack and Little Red Riding Hood have their own new disappointments.<\/p>\n

As this is all percolating, the giant\u2019s wife comes down from the sky to get even with Jack for killing her husband. And get even she does. In the end we are all chastened and wiser, and living as happily-ever-after as real grown-up life allows.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cInto the Woods\u201d runs through Sept. 27 at the Sunnyvale Community Theatre, 550 E. Remington Drive. Performance times vary but are most Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Tickets are available at sunnyvaleplayers.org. Note: bring a sweater, because the theater is cold.<\/p>\n

Later this season, the Players will be presenting Alice in Wonderland, Rent, Disney\u2019s Descendants, and Mean Girls. In addition, Sunnyvale Evening of the Cultural Arts has three more performances slated for this year. See tinyurl.com\/sunnyvalearts<\/a> for details.<\/p>\n

Related Posts:
God, Good and Garlic Repel the Dark Forces of Count Dracula on Stage with Sunnyvale Community Players<\/a>
Sunnyvale Community Players Brings Bay Area Twist to \u201cLittle Shop of Horrors\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Wilde famously said, \u201cThere are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[6036,88,90,89,2922,203,26450],"class_list":["post-460429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area-news","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-silicon-valley-voice","tag-sunnyvale","tag-sunnyvale-community-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}