The Royal Conservatory Goes INTO THE WOODS This Holiday Season

The Royal Conservatory of Music will present Into the Woods, its third Sondheim musical in concert, after the success of Follies in 2021 and A Little Night Music in 2023. This special 2024 holiday season production, suitable for the whole family, will run on December 28, 29, and 30 at 7pm, and 31 at 3pm.

Richard Ouzounian, who has directed both Follies and A Little Night Music at The Royal Conservatory, said: “I am happy to be returning for the third time to Koerner Hall – my favourite venue – with a third work by Stephen Sondheim – my favourite composer. Into the Woods will provide a marvelous way for the whole family to round out the holiday season and sail into the new year with an inspiring message.”

One of Sondheim's most popular works, Into the Woods is a Tony Award-winning musical which takes everyone's favourite storybook characters and brings them together for a timeless yet relevant modern classic. The story follows a Baker and his wife, who wish to have a child; Cinderella, who wishes to attend the King's Festival; and Jack, who wishes his cow would give milk. When the Baker and his wife learn that they cannot have a child because of a Witch's curse, the two set off on a journey to break the curse. Everyone's wish is granted, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later with disastrous results.

The all-star cast of Canadian theatre and television icons includes Tess Benger, who has performed in both previous Sondheim shows at the Conservatory, and recently starred as Carole King in Beautiful in Montreal and Winnipeg, will play Cinderella; Dora Award-winning performer and recording artist Gabi Epstein (Baker's Wife), hailed as “Canada's Queen of Cabaret” by CTV, best known for playing Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors at the Stratford Festival and Fanny Brice in Funny Girl at the Segal Centre; Sara Farb, who has appeared at the Stratford Festival and made her Broadway debut in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in 2019, is the Witch; theatre icon and recipient of the Governor General's Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award, Eric Peterson, perhaps best-known for the TV shows Street Legal, This Is Wonderland, and Corner Gas, appears as the Narrator/Mysterious Man; Mike Nadajewski, fresh off his triumphant role in La Bête, who has spent multiple seasons at Shaw and Stratford festivals, and appeared in Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway, is the Baker; and one of Canada's best known stage actors, Fiona Reid (Jack's Mother/Giant), who has performed in theatres across the country, including five seasons with the Stratford Festival and 13 at the Shaw Festival, as well as theatres in Great Britain and the U.S. Reid, Epstein, and Benger have previously appeared in the Conservatory's production of Sondheim's A Little Night Music as Madame Armfeldt, Charlotte Magnus, and Petra, respectively.

Also joining the cast is Nicole Joy-Fraser (Cinderella's Stepmother), an Indigi-queer multi-disciplinary artist who has been storytelling for stage and screen, across Turtle Island and beyond, and has worked with the Stratford Festival, Shaw, Theatre Aquarius, Charlottetown Festival, CBC, and CBS; Robert Markus (Wolf/Cinderella's Prince), a Stratford-based actor and singer, best known to audiences for performing the titular role in Dear Evan Hansen, for which he was a recipient of the Toronto Theatre Critics Award and a Dora Award nomination; Ben Page (Jack) a non-binary theatre artist who has appeared in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (Drayton), The Man That Got Away (Buddies in Bad Times), Ursa: A Folk Musical (Tweed & Co), and Alice in Wonderland (Soulpepper); and Heeyun Park 박희윤 (Little Red Riding Hood), an actor, singer, and writer who won both the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Toronto Critic's Choice Award for her performance as Princess Mary in the Canadian premiere of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.

The cast is rounded out by Dillan Chiblow (Rapunzel's Prince), an Ojibwe storyteller from Garden River First Nation in Ontario, nominated for a Dora Award in 2023 for outstanding performance by an Individual for his performance in Bentboy that had its world premiere at Young People's Theatre in Toronto; soprano Elena Howard-Scott (Rapunzel), a former Rebanks Fellow at The Royal Conservatory's Glenn Gould School, who will perform in the North American premiere of The Journal of Hélène Berr at the Conservatory in January 2025; Japanese/Jamaican singer, actor, and dancer Jillian Mitsuko Cooper (Florinda), whose credits include Simone, Half and Half, and Jesus Christ Superstar; Will Parry (Milky White, Granny, Steward, etc.) a Barrie-born singer-actor-puppeteer based in Toronto, who has performed with Drayton Entertainment, Smile Theatre, and beyond; Emma Pennell (Cinderella's Mother) a trailblazing Mi'kmaw two-spirit operatic soprano from South River, Ontario and 2024 Canadian Opera Company Centre Stage Competition finalist who is completing their Artist Diploma at The Glenn Gould School; and Mirabella Sundar Singh (Lucinda), a South Indian-Sri Lankan performer, choreographer, and creator whose credits include NEW, Fifteen Dogs, Mamma Mia!, Shakespeare D&D, Twelfth Night the Musical, and Parkdale the Musical.

Richard Ouzounian directs the production, Paul Sportelli conducts a 20-piece, on-stage orchestra featuring students from The Royal Conservatory's Glenn Gould School, and Genny Sermonia is the choreographer. Ouzounian has worked in the arts professionally for 52 years. During that time, he has directed, written, or performed in nearly 300 shows. He has served as artistic director of five major Canadian theatres, been an associate director of the Stratford Festival for four seasons, and was Harold Prince's assistant on the original Toronto production of The Phantom of the Opera in 1989. He was theatre critic of the Toronto Star for 15 years and spent 14 years as the host of CBC Radio's popular Broadway program, Say It With Music. Sportelli has been Music Director of the Shaw Festival since 1999, where he has conducted dozens of musicals, including Merrily We Roll Along, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, and Sweeney Todd. He made his Broadway debut conducting Aspects of Love and his Koerner Hall debut with Follies. Sermonia is a Filipina-Canadian actor, dancer, choreographer, whose credits include the Canadian premiere of Disney's Frozen, the world premiere of The Last Timbit, and productions at the Shaw Festival, Musical Stage Company, Capitol Theatre, and Grand Theatre, among others.

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