BWW Live Blog: Go INTO THE WOODS for All the News from the Cast Q&A

Christmas is coming early for INTO THE WOODS fans! Tonight, at 9:30 pm ET/6:30 pm PT, Yahoo! Movies is hosting a special Q&A event with the cast and you can watch it here on BroadwayWorld. Stars Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendirck, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, and Christine Baranski (sorry, friends, no Johnny Depp) will be participating, as well as director Rob Marshall and screenwriter James Lapine. With this group of characters anything can happen!

We'll be updating live as the event unfolds, posting any clever and/or witty comment made by the cast, any breaking news, and pretty much anything else that we find interesting. If you're fan of the Sondheim-penned musical, or of anyone involved in the film, for that matter, you won't want to miss this.

The first time I ever saw INTO THE WOODS, I was in elementary school. We went on a class trip to a local high school to see their drama club's performance, and GLEE's Jenna Ushkowitz played Little Red Riding Hood. Clearly, it's been a while.

If you're in need of an INTO THE WOODS refresher, like most of my former classmates probably are, or if you're new to the club completely, the musical follows a Baker (Corden) and his Wife (Blunt), who are desperate to have children. They learn that the Witch (Streep) has cursed them and will only lift the curse if they bring her some very important items: the cape of Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford, who played Annie in the show's most recent Broadway revival); the cow, Milky White, belonging to Jack (you know, the kid with the beanstalk); Cinderella (Kendrick)'s glass slipper; and a lock of Rapunzel's long, golden hair. To find these things, the Baker and his Wife travel - you guessed it! - "into the woods," where a whole host of questionable characters - including the Wolf (Depp) and the Giant - create havoc (and make for some wonderful musical numbers) along the way. The film opens on Christmas Day.

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9:43 pm - The cast has arrived. Everyone's been introduced. Let's do this.

9:48 pm - "This is a fairytale for the post-9/11 generation." Interesting take, Rob Marshall. You're right, the "you are not alone" message resonates with kids in a very different way in today's world than it did maybe when it was first written. The image of the woods really does reflect that. You enter one person, and emerge a changed person. I guess that's why they made you the director!

9:52 pm - "The world is dark and full of joy." In one quick, little sentence, Meryl Streep sums up oh so many Sondheim musicals.

9:54 pm - Anna Kendrick just answered the question playing over and over in my head: were the performances performed live or were they pre-recorded? The live recordings worked crazy well with SWEENEY TODD, so it's nice to know that - at least, when appropriate and do-able - that same live method was used for INTO THE WOODS.

10:00 pm - Watch out for that Baker's Wife! Thanks for the warning, Emily Blunt. It's interesting how many conversations are happening tonight about motherhood (or parenthood, in general really), and how that concept influences not only the characters, but the show in general.

Also James Corden. You're awesome.

10:05 pm - D'aw, James Corden, stop being great. You're gonna be a star!

"And then, all of a sudden, you're in a room talking to Meryl Streep, like this is just something that you do," says the man living the dream of the Meryl fan in all of us.

"But why are we sat so high?" Ah. Now we're getting to the real questions.

10:09 pm - And now it's Christine Baranski's turn to answer a question: knowing how INTO THE WOODS was on stage, how did you approach the character? "They're mean because they're deeply narcisistic. That's where the cruelty towards Cinderella lies." Cinderella's step-family goes wherever the opportunity lies. "Viscious oportunism," as she describes.

Also, "The K Family." It's okay, Christine, we all know who you're talking about. (But when did they become They Who Must Not Be Named?)

10:12 pm - We've learned where the comic relief on set came from! Thanks, Tracey Ullman and James Corden!

Wait, an open call to the mic to ask questions? Stampede! Ok, ok, fine, people were civilized. Kudos, New York.

10:19 pm - I really like Rob Marshall's plan about shooting on location instead of creating a primarily CGI universe. "This is a fairytale with real people," as he says, and "to do that in a blue room or a green room, I don't think we would've found our world."

Hold up: a 16-minute long opening sequence in a film? That's a crazy long time in film. Granted, they didn't pull a BIRDMAN and do it all in one take, but still, it's a feat to keep everything flowing in a scene that long. It's also pretty cool that Rob Marshall lets the actors' image of the character make it onto the screen visually. It sounds like a really basic thing to do as a director, but most of the time directors just go, "Yeah, that's great" and then turn to a separate design team to make the final decisions.

10:21 - Ah, the cutting of the songs. A problem all movie musicals face at some point. Marshall says "No More" was the most difficult song to cut. It's great, but in a movie with no Mysterious Man character (darn!), it totally makes sense to cut it. At least both James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim gave the song list their stamps of approval.

10:24 - Listen. If I saw Meryl Streep in full on Witch make-up in a supermarket, I don't know what I'd do. Probably something like stare, laugh, sneak a picture, send it to everyone I know, and then continue on with my life.

Also, now I want to go to Richmond Park and see these giant trees she speaks of.

10:27 pm - Just a side note: internet questions (especially tumblr questions) usually scare me, but these questions are pretty good!

James Corden takes the prize for the best story of the night. "Time slowed, and I thought, 'I'm about to watch Meryl Streep die.'" That Meryl is intense, guys!

10:30 pm - I take that back. Meryl Streep correcting Stephen Sondheim's grammar/word choice in his letter may be the best part of the night.

In all honesty, though, I do love that Sondheim sends his approval. Once again I'm going to reference SWEENEY TODD. People had concerns about that transition from stage to screen as well, but that film also had Sondheim's approval, and it ended up earning award nominations, so I have high hopes for INTO THE WOODS!

That's a wrap, ladies and gentlemen. I thought it was a pretty quality Q&A session! What'd you think? Are you excited for the movie, or are you still a little "eh" about the whole thing? Let us know on Twitter or in the comments below! No matter how you feel, one thing's for sure: James Corden is now everbody's new BFF.