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If you’ve ever wanted to venture literally into the woods with Sondheim, now’s your chance—no teleportation or upstate trek required. This October, theater director Miles Sternfeld will bring a site-specific, immersive production of Into the Woods to Staten Island’s 140-acre Camp Pouch, transforming the wilderness into a fairytale under the stars.
Running through October 25, with just four performances remaining, the limited run is the inaugural production from Sternfeld Studio and promises a singular experience: 25 audience members per night, 225 total tickets. Each evening begins around a campfire before guests set off, lantern in hand, to follow the story’s familiar characters through the trees. “This is not your typical Into the Woods,” says Sternfeld. “It’s a spiritual, communal journey into the heart of the fairy tale—a mythic, acoustic, firelit fever dream set in the very woods the characters sing about.”
That “fever dream” is enhanced by a newly commissioned acoustic orchestration from Six tour arranger Lena Gabrielle, featuring guitar, bass, violin, accordion, melodica and hand percussion. Musicians double as narrators, blending seamlessly into the production’s campfire storytelling vibe.
Broadway favorites headline the cast, including Afra Hines (Hadestown) as the Witch, Matt Dengler (A Little Night Music) as the Baker and Hannah Elless (Bright Star) as the Baker’s Wife, alongside Joy Del Valle (West Side Story) as Cinderella and Jordan Matthew Brown (The Book of Mormon) as Jack.
Costumes and set pieces, all crafted from natural and reclaimed materials, blend seamlessly into the wooded landscape, rather than dominating it, trading Broadway’s grandeur for intimacy and authenticity. Audience members move with the actors as scenes unfold around them, merging performance and place in real time.
Lead produced by Sternfeld Studios and Marina Montesanti (Fat Ham, A Beautiful Noise), the project aims to make theater elemental again, literally. As dusk falls and the woods come alive, Sondheim’s score promises to echo through the branches in a way it never has before.
Tickets (if you can snag one) are on sale now. Just don’t expect to find your way out of the forest unchanged.