Original Broadway Cast of Into the Woods

The Original Broadway Cast of Into the Woods introduced Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's landmark fairy-tale musical to Broadway audiences in 1987, opening at what was then the Martin Beck Theatre. The show interweaves the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Ridinghood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel through an original tale of a childless Baker and his Wife, exploring the consequences that follow after "happily ever after."

Bernadette Peters originated the role of the Witch, delivering the show's darkly comic and emotionally piercing centerpiece, while Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason played the Baker and his Wife with a grounded, everyman warmth that anchored the fantastical plot. The score is quintessential Sondheim: intricate rhyme schemes, interlocking musical motifs, and songs like «Children Will Listen» and «Giants in the Sky» that shift fluidly between wit and pathos.

This original cast recording is considered one of the definitive documents of Sondheim's work, showcasing how a sophisticated, lyrically dense score could still deliver broad theatrical entertainment. The production's blending of multiple fairy tales into a single interconnected narrative, and its examination of parenthood, morality, and consequence, made it enormously influential on subsequent musical theatre writing.