Christopher Rhoton, an IU third-year MFA student and the scenic designer for the musical, said he created the set to look like the woods. He also added elements to the set that emphasized this is a story with many fairytale ?characters.
“It’s realistic elements that are kind of juxtaposed in a way that make them seem magical and surreal,” ?Rhoton said.
At 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Ruth N. Halls Theatre, the show was put on by IU Theatre students and faculty.
“Into the Woods” follows a baker and his wife living in a small village that dream of nothing more than having a child. They find out from an evil witch that the only way they can do that is if they retrieve four magical items within the woods. Soon, the baker runs into a few familiar fairytale characters, including Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and many others as he ventures into the woods to find the items before three midnights pass.
Before the show, freshman Mallory Hill eagerly waited outside the doors of the theater. Though she was required to see the show as a theater major, she said she also came to see it because she loves ?the show.
“I think it’ll be fun,” Hill said. “I like all the fairy tale aspects and how they blend together. I think it’s kind of ?different.”
Rhoton said “Into the Woods” is a show that is near and dear to his heart, and he was thrilled when he found out he would be designing the set for his thesis project because in high school, it was the musical that started his theater career.
“The fact that it’s the thesis for my master’s project kind of feels like I’ve come full circle, which is really nice,” ?Rhoton said.
Rhoton started planning the design for the set nearly a year ago when he started researching images of both woods and fairy tales on Pinterest alongside working with the director.
After creating pencil sketches, a scale model and blueprints, Rhoton was in charge of overseeing that the set was built according to his designs.
“I just kind of floated around and supervised all of those areas to make sure that it all is coming together, feels cohesive and looks like that thing I talked about and showed to the director months ago,” ?Rhoton said.
Rhoton said he was thrilled the set looked almost exactly identical to the original scale model he created, and he thinks people who’ve seen the show before would be surprised at what he did because it’s not a typical “Into the Woods” set.
“A lot of the furniture and dressing is what I would call shabby chic sort of stuff,” Rhoton said. “It looks old and distressed, but it’s beautiful because of that.”
Rhoton received praise and a first-place title for the set when he entered it in the Southeastern Theatre Conference Graduate ?Scenic Design Competition ?earlier this year.
He said it was a risky move entering this set in the competition because while other competitors entered final set photos, Rhoton was only able to enter his design concept statement, research images, initial pencil sketches, full-colored digital rendering and model photos.
“Even just getting good feedback from someone at that level was amazing, but then to actually win first place was incredible,” ?Rhoton said.
After Rhoton finishes his graduate studies, he said, his goal is to design for Broadway. He would also be happy working for a theater company that would creatively challenge him.
“There’s just something indescribable about being able to draw a picture of something and then see that through to completion to something that’s a full-size thing standing in front of an audience,” ?Rhoton said.
