Lord of the Rings Online players are putting on a 30-person adaptation of Sondheim’s Into the Woods this weekend

One of my favorite memories in MMOs is participating in plays and musicals, something I first saw people doing in Ultima Online in 1997 and just knew I needed to be a part of. Here we are a quarter of a century later and people are still doing it, and if you want to see it yourself, look no further than Lord of the Rings Online, where players are putting on a full-scale adaptation of Sondheim and Lapine’s Into the Woods this very weekend.

According to the flyer posted to Reddit, players representing the Brandywine Theatre Company will offer two showings of the legendary musical: one on Friday, March 10th, at 8 p.m. EST, and one on Saturday, March 11th, at 6 p.m. EST. Both are on the Brandywine server, and players need only create a new toon and make their way to the area outside the Michel Delving Mathom House in the Shire – easily accessible to folks who aren’t already LOTRO players as any newbie free-to-play gamer can get there.

For those of you who can’t attend in person, YouTuber Miloascape will be hosting a stream of the show; she’s also got an interview with the showrunners that includes a little bit of commentary on how the show was created as well as dress rehearsal. The theater reps say the cast practiced weekly for two months; there are approximately 15 folks in the cast, five in the crew, and 10 in the band. Yes, this is a musical!

Worth noting is that the group is recruiting for another show already: an adaptation of Aladdin that is coming later this year.

Brandywine Theater Company Presents Into the Woods from lotro