Kris has twice directed Into The Woods; firstly in 1999 at the Conservatorium of Music in Queensland, and then in 2010 at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney with the cast of Wicked.
For CQU, it was a great opportunity to try some ideas out on one of the classics
in the canon - any great musical should be as open to reinterpretation
as any great play.
Here, Into the Woods was treated as if
we were looking at a production of As You Like It, a similar
text in which the forest in a magical, fearful place. For
this production, the staging concept was based around a suburbs and
city setting, so that the "forest" was this fearful, urban
environment.
In 2010 it was staged as a fundraiser for the Rob Guest Endowment, and it was a tremendous challenge. Working around his and the cast's daily demands on Wicked, Kris crafted a fully-staged production that utilised the enormous resources available to the Wicked Creative Team.