Finally, we have made it to production week for Into the Woods. This is the final scene of the show right before our final dance number. This show has been very challenging. Of my limited experience with opera scenes--specfically Massenet, Mozart, and Kurt Weill (operetta)--that I've been involved in, they have been much easier for me than this show. First of all, Sondheim likes to mix song with rhythmic speech in his music, and it makes it very difficult to coordinate. Also, since there is dialogue in between the songs, the orchestra has to find its cue from our lines (a challenging thing if someone happens to drop a line), and we in turn have to figure out when exactly to start singing, which isn't always as obvious as it could be. I'm glad that tomorrow will be our last show.
On opening night, I had a pretty terrible cold. I was just REALLY glad I was singing broadway and not opera, because that would have been very interesting to try to get out any technically difficult notes. Thankfully, due to faith and prayers, I got through the performance. My part wasn't fabulous by any stretch of the imagination, but I was grateful that I had a voice at all and didn't have to hold a tissue to my nose the whole time.
This is my first costume for the show. Note my curly hairpiece. It's kind of weird to look at myself with a mass of hair in the back. Especially when I just got my hair cut nice and short:
Here is another picture of me in Cinderella's ballgown. It was supposed to be on the shoulder, but the sleeves kept falling off, (I have a very short torso, and the ribbing of the dress kept the dress up too high for the sleeves to stay on) and so I had to wear it like this. Note the gold shoes. In Sondheim's production, Cinderella has gold shoes instead of glass. I'm rather glad about that.
Many thanks to Michelle for all these pictures. This is backstage with Mike (The Baker) and Michelle (Little Red), both of whom were wonderful as their respective characters.
Little Red is sad because we made plans to kill the giant and thinks we ought to have shown forgiveness. This is right before Cinderella sings the famous song from the show: No one is alone.
This is the wedding scene, of course. John played an awesome Cinderella's prince. One of the best lines of the show is after Cinderella gets mad at Cinderella's prince and he responds, "I was raised to be charming, not sincere," as some kind of excuse for infidelity. Nice. John did a great job and hammed it up.
Here is my solo song onstage about how the prince spread pitch on the stairs of the palace and how I lost one of my gold slippers as a result and also what my plans are.
We're all singing about how happy we are in this scene. From left to right, Dave (Cinderella's Father), Rose (Cinderella's stepmother), Chrissy (Lucinda), Carrie (Florinda), all of whom were great and fun to work with.
Backstage shot of Cinderella's princess attire.
Backstage as the wedding couple. Fun fun. 
