It’s not your typical fairy tale.

“Normally when an audience goes to see a production of ‘Into the Woods,’ they see characters dressed up like fairy tale creatures and they see giant trees on stage because it takes place in the forest,” director Mike Miserendino said.

“What we’ve done with our production is we’re actually setting it in the present day and we’re striping away a lot of the fairy tale myth, for lack of a better term. Because the plot line of the story is anything but a happy fairy tale.”

Fox Valley Theatre Company’s take on the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical runs Fridays-Sundays Sept. 10-19 at Elgin Community College’s Blizzard Theatre in Elgin.

Performances of the full-length musical are at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 10-11 and 17-18 and at 2 p.m. Sept. 12 and 19. The Sept. 11 show will include American Sign Language interpretation.

The production is the theater company’s first indoor show since the pandemic began in 2020. There will be limited capacity seating to allow for social distancing. Masks are required.

“Everybody has to be masked. Both the performers and the audience members,” Miserendino said. “So we’ve been using clear face masks (on stage).”

The musical follows a baker and his wife who are on a quest to have a child. Because the witch next door placed a curse on the couple, they are unable to have a child of their own.

In order to break the curse, the baker and his wife need to find a cow that is as white as milk, a glass slipper, a red cape and hair that is yellow as corn. They find these items through encounters with Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel.

“Throughout Act I we see that all of these characters have certain needs and they want something and they wish something. In fact the opening song is ‘I Wish’ and we hear of all these characters’ different wishes for themselves,” Miserendino said.

“The characters, for the most part, get what they wish. But then what Sondheim and Lapine did for Act II is they started to realize that just because you wished something doesn’t always mean it’s always going to be for the better. So we see that all of these that the characters took in Act I, they now have consequences in Act II. Act II gets a lot deeper thematically.”

Because the production is set in the present day, the costumes will be modern day clothing suggestive of the fairy tale characters. For instance the princes will be dressed in three-piece suits. The show will be staged in forestlike area outside of an industrial zone, featuring metal bridges, scaffolding and railroad tracks.

“Because this is slightly dystopian, a lot of the set is going to have greenery all over it, almost as if nature is taking over this abandoned area outside of an urban setting,” Miserendino said. “Hopefully it will allow audience members to question their own lives and the society that we’re living in today.”

Audience members familiar with the musical will also see some other changes to the typical staging of “Into the Woods.” Featuring actors ages 14-22, the cast is larger than normal.

“The show only has 21 scripted characters, but we have a cast of 37 and so with the extra company members, they’ll be serving as the puppeteers,” Miserendino said. “We’ve also added some ensemble pieces where this show does not call for a lot of dance at all.”

The theater company hired professional puppeteer Lolly Extract to build the puppets that will be manipulated by cast members on stage. Puppets will depict animal characters including the wolf and cow, as well as the giant.

For the dance ensemble, choreographer Heather Goldman added “a lot of really cool interpretive movement.”

“This is going to be unlike any other production of ‘Into the Woods’ that people might have seen before,” Miserendino said.

Miserendino, who teaches theater at Bartlett High School, said he is proud of the work the cast and crew has done.

“We’ve had some awesome collaborative conversations dissecting the themes of the show,” he said.

As the characters learn that all actions have consequences, it becomes clear that no character is good or bad, but “there’s a blurred line in between,” he said.

“We see all of these characters whose lives are intertwined and they have to band together as a community in order to dispose of a threat, which happens to be in the form of a giant, in Act II.”

It’s definitely not your happy go lucky fairy tale in the full-length production of ‘Into the Woods,’ ” Miserendino said. “Still though, it is appropriate for audiences of all ages.”

There is no swearing or cursing, he said. And some of the deeper themes may go over the heads of younger audience members while still teaching a lesson.

“It really is a communal, ensemble based production and it tells us audience members that it really is important to work together to defeat our modern day ‘giants,’ ” he said.

Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.