They're Going Back to the Woods! Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine Set for INTO THE WOODS Reunion at Segerstrom Center

Audiences have an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to journey back into the woods and American musical theater history with the creators and original Broadway cast of the award-winning musical Into the Woods on Sunday, November 9 at 6 p.m. in Segerstrom Hall. Part conversation, part musical selections, this one-night-only reunion celebration is being written and produced by Eileen Roberts in association with Segerstrom Center for the Arts. It features special guests composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim and author and director James Lapine, along with original Broadway cast members Bernadette Peters (The Witch), Joanna Gleason (The Baker's Wife), Chip Zien (The Baker), Robert Westenberg (Cinderella's Prince and Wolf), Kim Crosby (Cinderella), Danielle Ferland (Little Red Riding Hood) and Ben Wright (Jack). Mo Rocca is the moderator; Tedd Firth is the musical director.

Tickets to the Into the Woods Reunion start at $59 and will go on sale Sunday, September 21 at 10 a.m. PT. Single tickets will be available online at SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) 556-2787. For inquiries about groups of 10 or more, call the Group Services office at (714) 755-0236. The TTY number is (714) 556-2746.

Segerstrom Center for the Arts applauds Kia, Official Automotive Partner of the Center and United Airlines, Official Airline of the Center.

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods premiered in 1986 at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. The production received its Broadway premiere on November 5, 1987 at the Martin Beck Theater. The production received ten Tony Award® nominations, winning in the categories of Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical and Best Performance of a Leading Actress in a Musical (for Joanna Gleason). The later Broadway revival won two additional Tonys. The show went on to receive eight Olivier Awards for London's original West End production and its later revival. Into the Woods has been seen in other productions in New York and London, in a U.S. national tour, as well as internationally in Sydney, Melbourne, Barcelona, Paris, Puerto Rico, Baltimore and San Francisco.

Into the Woods continues to be enormously popular. A new production was presented this summer at the show's birthplace, San Diego's Old Globe Theatre, and Walt Disney Pictures' film adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Lilla Crawford, Daniel Huttlestone, Christine Baranski and Tracey Ullman opens this Christmas.

The Center's special reunion event will honor the historic creative team of composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim and writer/director James Lapine, their extraordinary show and the actors who created its iconic roles. The audience will have the rare opportunity to witness a meeting of those whose collective talent resulted in one of the most memorable shows in Broadway history. It will inspire all generations of theater lovers and performers and give the cast an opportunity to reminisce and share how the production shaped their lives both personally and professionally.

This live documentary style production will be part retrospective, part moderated panel with Sondheim, Lapine and the cast, and part performance, with some cast members performing the songs they introduced. It will encompass the genesis of Into the Woods, progress to the creation of its award-winning score and book, casting for the Broadway premiere and the process that led to the show's New York premiere in 1987. Sondheim, Lapine and the cast will share their personal accounts of shaping the musical. The cast will recall how they were selected, where they were in their careers then and relate how the success of Into the Woods affected them and where they are today.