Into the woods with Stephen Sondheim
Recently, Stephen Sondheim was added to our prescribed reading list for the Language and Literature IB programme. Having grown up on musical theatre, I was very exited to see his name on the list and immediately got to work on how I could include him in my programme.
Having written the lyrics for such works as West Side Story, Gypsy Rose Lee, The Follies, Sweeny Todd and Into the Woods, I knew I had my hands full of various genres I could use to both entertain and interest my students.
For the purpose of this post, I have reblogged an article rich with information about Sondheim’s Into The Woods, a remake of the Grimm Brother fairytales. But it is this musical that joins all of these fables together intertwining theme into a story of flesh, guts and gore (well he did write for Sweeny Todd too what do you expect).
The reworking of these fables allow us, the audience, to see what would happen if these characters were brought together into one large mashup of good vs. evil. One where bad guys and good guys lose.
To find more information about this ingenious work of art you can refer to the link below.
