In this episode, we talk with Assistant Professor of Acting Dan Stearns, who is directing our upcoming production of "Into the Woods," which runs November 4-6 in Fulton Chapel.
In this episode, we talk with Assistant Professor of Acting Dan Stearns, who is directing our upcoming production of "Into the Woods," which runs November 4-6 in Fulton Chapel.
For more information about the show and to get tickets, click here: https://olemissboxoffice.com/
Speaker 1
From the Department of Theater and Film at the University of Mississippi, this is stage and screen.
Katherine Stewart
Hello, hello and welcome back to stage and screen.
Katherine Stewart
I'm your host, Katherine Stewart, and my guest today is Dan Stearns, who is our assistant professor of acting and the director of our upcoming production of into the Woods, which runs November 4th.
Katherine Stewart
Through 6th in Fulton Chapel.
Katherine Stewart
Creating a faithful but also novel version of a very popular and well known musical can be difficult, and Dan and I had a very interesting conversation about that, so I will let him take it away.
Katherine Stewart
Without further ado, here's Dan.
Katherine Stewart
Well, hello Dan.
Katherine Stewart
Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me about into the woods, our big fall musical.
Dan Stearns
Absolutely, absolutely.
Katherine Stewart
So, so for anybody maybe who hasn't seen the show and I'm sure there are few and far between, could you just tell us a little bit about what it is?
Dan Stearns
What is into the woods about?
Dan Stearns
What isn't it about?
Dan Stearns
I think might be the better question, because it's it's for those who don't know, it is a musical and the the story of this musical interweaves a number of fairy tales, European fairy tales, principally from Grimms fairy tales, the musicals.
Dan Stearns
Written by the book was written by James Lapine and the music and lyrics are by Stephen Sondheim. The the combination of Lapine and Sondheim did a number of works together. It's from the 1980s.
Dan Stearns
And Lapine was inspired by the book that written by Bruno Bettelheim, who was a.
Dan Stearns
A psychoanalyst who wrote a book called the Uses of Enchantment, which is a psychoanalytic reading of the Grimms, fairy tales and battle time, is somewhat a controversial figure more recently, but there's some interesting interesting things in that book in this discussion of.
Dan Stearns
Fairy tales and their psychoanalytic meaning.
Dan Stearns
And the fairy tales get woven together in an interesting way, such that we see a number of familiar stories and the characters from these stories all meeting together.
Dan Stearns
On stage and by the end.
Dan Stearns
So for example, Cinderella, little bit, Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Jack of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Dan Stearns
By the end of the first act they seem to have all achieved their goals and are going to live happily ever after.
Dan Stearns
But then there are complications that come around in the second act and they are forced.
Dan Stearns
Who find, uh, a new way of living?
Dan Stearns
I would, I would, I would guess I would say that is.
Dan Stearns
Something more like a modern.
Dan Stearns
Sensibility about how we have to find our way.
Dan Stearns
Something like an existential sensibility about how we have to find our way through the world, but it's still the, the, the the production itself has, if not a happy ending then.
Dan Stearns
A hopeful ending or a positive ending in the sense.
Dan Stearns
That these characters can find their way.
Dan Stearns
It's very it's a very popular show.
Dan Stearns
I don't know, I I would guess it's probably sometimes most performed show, although not necessarily in the professional on the professional stage.
Dan Stearns
Well, there is a Broadway revival right now of the show.
Dan Stearns
I I mean, I don't have, I don't have statistics.
Dan Stearns
Andy on which is this most performed show, but certainly is most popular, at least in part because it.
Dan Stearns
Gets so frequently.
Dan Stearns
Performed by community theaters, by college theaters, as we are doing by high schools, and if not?
Dan Stearns
The high school is doing the standard version.
Dan Stearns
There is a so-called into the Woods Junior version, which takes out some of the adult themes and adds some other characters, like the Three Little Pigs that are more familiar for younger audiences.
Dan Stearns
So it's it's probably his most popular.
Dan Stearns
His most popular show overall.
Katherine Stewart
So, so going ahead from that, it is very popular and a lot of people are familiar with it and love it.
Katherine Stewart
I mean, I think it's, it's beloved.
Katherine Stewart
Uh, what are you as a director bringing to it?
Dan Stearns
Coming into it, I had.
Dan Stearns
To say what are?
Dan Stearns
What are my?
Dan Stearns
What are my goals or what can I achieve by producing this play?
Dan Stearns
I have a group of students who almost all certainly are very familiar with this production, many of whom have acted in.
Dan Stearns
And sung in prior productions, whether the the Standard edition or whether the children into the Woods Junior edition, and have also probably seen at least one production of this show.
Dan Stearns
I also have to.
Dan Stearns
Think about what our audience might be interested in seeing, or what might be challenging for our audience.
Dan Stearns
And I also have to think about what?
Dan Stearns
How can I satisfy myself?
Dan Stearns
How can I find something interesting for me in this production and I have to think about this?
Dan Stearns
Goes back to talking about our students and our student performers.
Dan Stearns
What can be my pedagogical goals?
Dan Stearns
What kinds of educational goals or educational outcomes can I have for them in the process of preparing and presenting this show?
Dan Stearns
And so the the way I went about this was to begin.
Dan Stearns
By returning to that source material.
Dan Stearns
Battle Hymes book uses of enchantment and to think about what into the woods means per say.
Dan Stearns
Because in the text of the show itself the woods mean a whole number of things.
Dan Stearns
They are kind of.
Dan Stearns
To get to, you know, sort of literary theory, technical for a moment, they are a bit of an empty signifier.
Dan Stearns
The woods become a metaphor for any number of things.
Dan Stearns
They are a place.
Dan Stearns
Of of darkness and danger.
Dan Stearns
They are a dream.
Dan Stearns
Space they are the woods, are a metaphor for life.
Dan Stearns
There are many, many, many things that the woods mean in this play.
Dan Stearns
And so my first thought was maybe there don't need to be any woods in the woods and.
Dan Stearns
And to try to really focus on the storytelling aspect of it.
Dan Stearns
The thing I wanted to point out and I just thought about this yesterday.
Dan Stearns
In one of the late songs in the show, the which character sings careful the tale you tell.
Dan Stearns
That is the spell children will listen, so that it's about the nature of storytelling in itself and that the.
Dan Stearns
The whole.
Dan Stearns
Book of the story is framed by a narrator character who begins by saying Once Upon a time, which we all know is the beginning of so many fairy tales.
Dan Stearns
And in a way, the narrator is the narrator represents the audience.
Dan Stearns
But so as I thought about that and I thought about the idea that the woods represent many things and realizing that.
Dan Stearns
To do this.
Dan Stearns
To do this, show the way it's often done or the way.
Dan Stearns
The stage directions specify for what the original production was, which is a huge, huge production, a Broadway scale production, and something we can't really accomplish with the the resource restraint constraints that we have.
Dan Stearns
We don't have that size a theater and and so on.
Dan Stearns
I thought, well, what?
Dan Stearns
So do we have to make it look exactly like the Broadway production did or can we do something else?
Dan Stearns
And that's that's often what a director and a designer think.
Dan Stearns
I worked very closely with our.
Dan Stearns
With our designer Cody and we were thinking very carefully about what we wanted this world to be and we hashed out some ideas and we decided.
Dan Stearns
That to focus on the storytelling aspect and to focus on ideas about how.
Dan Stearns
How these stories function in a culture.
Dan Stearns
We thought about this being a taking place in a space that is.
Dan Stearns
I don't know how else to describe it other than a kind of dream world.
Dan Stearns
It is a repository of human wisdom.
Dan Stearns
It is an archive of human knowledge, and it exists in a no space because the woods, even if we had woods, aren't real either.
Dan Stearns
They exist in a theatrical space.
Dan Stearns
So I was looking for a way to make the.
Dan Stearns
Idea of the storytelling realm real rather than an imaginary way of making the woods real.
Dan Stearns
I realize this is this might sound vague or very high concept, and I guess it is.
Dan Stearns
High concept but.
Dan Stearns
I was thinking about what, you know, how do we look, how do we think about fairy tales in a psychological sense?
Dan Stearns
How do we think of something like?
Dan Stearns
Young's idea of the collective unconscious and the way that you know, human myths.
Dan Stearns
All work together to create meaning for us.
Dan Stearns
That myths are the way we create meaning or we communicate meaning across generations.
Dan Stearns
And that that's where this takes place.
Dan Stearns
It's in kind of an archive of European myths.
Dan Stearns
And we even talked about the possibility of having signs pointing one way to, you know, model impius or something like that, and another one pointing to Native American myths.
Dan Stearns
And there's just this giant repository somewhere of all the human stories.
Dan Stearns
So that is high concept, but there's actually, it actually goes goes.
Dan Stearns
Back to what I was saying about.
Dan Stearns
What are my goals?
Dan Stearns
As an educator.
Dan Stearns
And one of them is to say to students.
Dan Stearns
You know, there's no right way to perform any particular scripts.
Dan Stearns
We have to say the words and sing the notes as written.
Dan Stearns
That is what we are required to do contractually, but there's nothing that specifies.
Dan Stearns
What the world?
Dan Stearns
Of the play is, there's nothing that's specified.
Dan Stearns
What way?
Dan Stearns
In what way?
Dan Stearns
You say the lines, you just have to say the words.
Dan Stearns
We could say everything ironically if you wanted to, or you could place it wherever you want.
Dan Stearns
And so that was part of the thinking too is how do we look at this and say, you know what?
Dan Stearns
What happens if we ignore all these things that are in italics in the script?
Dan Stearns
Which are the initial stage description, stage directions?
Dan Stearns
Some of them, some of?
Dan Stearns
Them might have come from.
Dan Stearns
The writers, but many of them came from the.
Dan Stearns
Production and were just written down as the way it was done.
Dan Stearns
Well, that doesn't mean it's the only way to do it.
Dan Stearns
So that's part of it too.
Dan Stearns
From the from the pedagogical point of view, what can I show my students about the way one can think creatively about a script?
Dan Stearns
In the same way I often talk about now this.
Dan Stearns
This is a musical so there is a score, but I often talk about a play script as something like the the.
Dan Stearns
The music that a pianist sits down to, or the score that a Symphony conductor sits down to, they are instructions for how to realize a piece of music.
Dan Stearns
But a conductor has a great deal of freedom in choosing tempos, in choosing style, in choosing any kind of interpretive factors, and.
Dan Stearns
And I'm not a music specialist, but maybe even go into instrumentation and things like that.
Dan Stearns
So there's lots of different ways of performing a Symphony in the same way, there's lots of different ways of putting on any particular play.
Dan Stearns
So that that was that was my thinking there.
Dan Stearns
Will it work?
Dan Stearns
I certainly hope so.
Dan Stearns
So and also.
Dan Stearns
Aside from the question of what what what uh, what?
Dan Stearns
I was I trying to do?
Dan Stearns
As as a teacher, I also want our audience to maybe be surprised by this.
Dan Stearns
This story they think they know this musical they think they know and that they can be, they can make discoveries about this, this very familiar, this very familiar musical.
Katherine Stewart
So you mentioned themes and metaphor.
Katherine Stewart
What are some of the major?
Katherine Stewart
Themes of this show.
Dan Stearns
There's a lot of.
Dan Stearns
There's a lot of discussion of.
Dan Stearns
What it means to wish for something if you hear music in the background, I think that's 'cause people have just gone into the studio next door and might.
Dan Stearns
Be starting to work on?
Dan Stearns
Some things, but it's.
Dan Stearns
There is a lot of discussion.
Dan Stearns
Of of what it means to wish for something and what it means to have.
Dan Stearns
A wish come.
Dan Stearns
True and whether living by wishing for things is a real and practical way of living.
Dan Stearns
It's there are a lot of themes about the the difficulty of finding one way in life.
Dan Stearns
And coming to grips with the reality of growing up, there's a lot in the play about the way in which.
Dan Stearns
Adolescent characters like Jack or Little Red Riding Hood are coming to maturity.
Dan Stearns
And that's the reason we tell these stories in part.
Dan Stearns
Oh, or at least the way they are in this book dealing with.
Dan Stearns
These stories, the original Grimm. If anybody actually read the original versions of Grimm's Fairy Tales, they're quite brutal and frankly meant to terrify children. Because I suppose in.
Dan Stearns
When many of those stories began before the Grimm brothers wrote them down and codified them, you know, they began in a world that was actually quite terrifying, that if you did go outside the village or you did go away from home, there were dangers and and so they were meant to terrify children.
Dan Stearns
But we use them differently now and we we try to think that they tell different stories.
Dan Stearns
The way they're employed into the woods is.
Dan Stearns
To begin to talk about what it's like to find your way in the world and what it's like to face morally complex questions and that.
Dan Stearns
And what it's like to discover that there are no simple answers to problems, that everything has tradeoffs, that life is about choices.
Dan Stearns
I also think in in terms of.
Dan Stearns
These younger characters, sometimes it can be seen that there are moments of.
Dan Stearns
Sexual awakening and the troubles that may involve sexual awakening there are.
Dan Stearns
There are moments that involve questions of marital fidelity.
Dan Stearns
So it's, it's loaded with quite a lot really.
Dan Stearns
And that's one of the challenges in working on the scenes and in trying to to frame this is trying to figure out which of these things to highlight and which of them to sort of let lie.
Dan Stearns
But there's quite a lot, there's quite a lot in there.
Katherine Stewart
And then so also you've talked about what your goals were as an educator and what you hope students will take away from this experience, and then mention that you hoped audiences would be surprised.
Katherine Stewart
What what else do you hope for audiences?
Katherine Stewart
What do you hope they take away from it or or enjoy about it?
Dan Stearns
Well, yeah, that's a, I mean that's.
Dan Stearns
That's a great question, because I want to be sure that in coming up with a high concept for this that I'm not obscuring what is a pretty great piece of art as well.
Dan Stearns
The songs still have to speak for themselves, and they will.
Dan Stearns
And Sondheim, you know, is arguably our greatest.
Dan Stearns
Composer and lyricist for the musical theater stage.
Dan Stearns
I don't know. I don't.
Dan Stearns
Know, you could ever say who's the greatest, but he's arguably, you know, he's arguably the greatest and certainly the most important of the second-half of the 20th century.
Dan Stearns
So I I want to make sure that even as we're trying to.
Dan Stearns
Give an interpretation that we're not imposing something on it that doesn't fit and that the music can still speak for itself, and I think that it will come.
Dan Stearns
There are some, really.
Dan Stearns
Beautiful tunes in there and some very touching moments and I want to make sure that in fact the clothes of the production has the feeling of.
Dan Stearns
A of a.
Dan Stearns
Very familiar Broadway style production and that.
Dan Stearns
The moral lessons and that the.
Dan Stearns
The truly sensitive parts of this of this play get across.
Dan Stearns
I think people can still in.
Dan Stearns
I think people can still enjoy it as they always had, as they always have.
Dan Stearns
I just I I hope that maybe they can see it in a new way.
Dan Stearns
Or see some of the themes highlighted in ways that they aren't always it's.
Dan Stearns
As much as people love this play and this musical, I think it's easy to do it in a superficial way, and my approach is is to try to dig into.
Dan Stearns
Some of the darkness that is in it, some of the the moral difficulty that is in it, some of the the deep psychological things that was that was the origin of it in in, in, in that, in that book.
Dan Stearns
That lapine.
Dan Stearns
Took from to to write this story and.
Dan Stearns
I don't think that removes any of the beauty from it, I.
Dan Stearns
Don't think that removes any of the.
Dan Stearns
That removes any of the passion from it, but I want people to maybe see that highlighted a little more that it doesn't have to be.
Dan Stearns
It doesn't have to be superficial and it doesn't just have to be fun.
Dan Stearns
I actually let me take a look.
Dan Stearns
As I wrote down some notes, there was a thought that came to mind.
Katherine Stewart
I was actually going to ask you next if there was anything that you wanted to share about this, this production that we hadn't touched?
Katherine Stewart
On yet so.
Dan Stearns
Yeah, not too.
Dan Stearns
Much else that I wanted to say I just I my thought was.
Dan Stearns
My thought was in in coming up with a concept for this, how far can I stretch it without breaking it?
Dan Stearns
Now I don't really want to push that far, but that is a question.
Dan Stearns
Well, how can I?
Dan Stearns
How can I shape this without making it something other than what it is?
Dan Stearns
How far can this balloon be stretched, or how far so that was that was part of my thinking.
Dan Stearns
I hope it succeeds.
Dan Stearns
I have no doubt that the students are going to enjoy the process.
Dan Stearns
They are already.
Dan Stearns
We're only in, I guess, in our second week of rehearsal, but we're doing, we're doing a great job.
Dan Stearns
We've finished rough blocking, which is where we blocking, for those who don't know, is where you do the basics of the staging and and placing.
Dan Stearns
Everyone and figuring out their traffic patterns.
Dan Stearns
We've begun to do some of the choreography and tonight we begin to learn music.
Dan Stearns
Uh, we're going, you know, we're going along in the rehearsal process, but I can see everyone already having a good time.
Dan Stearns
And I I do want to make sure, aside from my own seriousness of purpose in this and my own interest in the big ideas, that the students are still going to enjoy it.
Dan Stearns
And it's clear that they are.
Dan Stearns
So no matter what happens, I'm I'm quite certain.
Dan Stearns
The performers are going to have a good time doing this, and I also hope and believe that the audience will still enjoy it.
Dan Stearns
I don't think this is.
Dan Stearns
I don't think I'm.
Dan Stearns
I don't think I'm going to break it.
Dan Stearns
I don't think I'm going to ruin this.
Dan Stearns
Well, it's too good to ruin.
Dan Stearns
I don't think there's anything like there's anything I could do to ruin this show.
Dan Stearns
So, but as I said, I also want to.
Dan Stearns
I also want to find a way to satisfy myself too, and satisfy my own curiosity about what can be done.
Dan Stearns
What else can be done with this story that we don't have to simply?
Dan Stearns
Do it do.
Dan Stearns
It again.
Dan Stearns
Do another you know, I don't want to be, I don't want anyone to be bored that oh, it's just another into the woods.
Katherine Stewart
Wonderful. Thank you.
Katherine Stewart
Thank you very much.
Dan Stearns
Yeah, glad to.
Dan Stearns
Glad to talk to you about this.
Dan Stearns
It's uh.
Dan Stearns
I always worry this, you know, when when I come up with something that's high concept like this, I always worry that it lives.
Dan Stearns
Only in my head.
Dan Stearns
So it's.
Dan Stearns
It's important to it's important to hash it out as I did with our with our design team.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, absolutely.
Katherine Stewart
Well, I can't wait to see it.
Katherine Stewart
It's not one that I've seen actually on Broadway, but I've seen.
Katherine Stewart
Video versions and listen to them.
Katherine Stewart
Soundtrack the original Broadway soundtrack many, many times.
Dan Stearns
As you say about video versions, that's actually something that we didn't talk about is that there is a movie version that came out so well quite a few years ago now I guess, but that was a 2014 maybe and that's different from. Yeah, that's different from.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, it seems like flow through decade.
Dan Stearns
The stage version and that also is something that people are coming with an understanding that's not quite the same story as as they see on stage.
Dan Stearns
So that's that's another piece of information for the audience.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, it's another layer.
Dan Stearns
That there comes that they're going with.
Katherine Stewart
I actually don't think I ever saw that, but maybe I will watch it between now and then.
Dan Stearns
Yeah, I have not.
Dan Stearns
I have not seen the film version and I I I don't think I want to until I'm done doing what I'm doing right now, 'cause I don't want, I don't want.
Dan Stearns
Influences coming in that will that.
Dan Stearns
Will you know I.
Dan Stearns
I don't want to say interrupt.
Dan Stearns
What I'm doing but.
Dan Stearns
I'm trying to.
Dan Stearns
I'm trying to push a vision through.
Katherine Stewart
Don't get distracted.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, yeah.
Katherine Stewart
Well, great.
Katherine Stewart
Well, thank you again.
Katherine Stewart
Uhm, quit talking with me.
Dan Stearns
As pleasure.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, absolutely, I'm going to.
Katherine Stewart
Hold on.
Katherine Stewart
Once again, that was Dan Stearns, assistant professor of acting and director of our upcoming production of into the woods.
Katherine Stewart
We'll have more information about this show, including how to get tickets in our show notes, so be sure to check those out.
Katherine Stewart
Until next time.
Katherine Stewart
This is stage and screen.