In a case where life imitates art, Robert Westenberg who played Cinderella's Prince and Kim Crosby who played Cinderella met making this play, eventually married and still are together (2009).
The original Broadway production of "Into the Woods" opened at the Martin Beck Theater in New York on November 5, 1987, ran for 765 performances and won the 1988 Tony Awards for the Best Book and Score. The original Broadway cast is virtually intact for this filmed production which included Joanna Gleason, the winner of the 1988 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and Robert Westenberg, the nominee for the 1988 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
Originally aired on PBS-TV on March 15, 1991.
For Jack's Mother's death scene, Barbara Bryne asked if she could perform it standing, fearing that falling over would aggravate problems she had with her back. As a result many productions of Into the Woods since have continued to do the scene this way and have Jack's Mother die standing up.
In a 2016 interview with the theater magazine Playbill, costume designer Ann Hould-Ward said that Cinderella's wedding dress design for the original Broadway production was inspired by the wedding gown that Diana, Princess of Wales, wore to marry England's Prince Charles in 1981. By 1987, there was already some intimation in the international press that Charles and Diana's marriage was not the "happily-ever-after fairytale" that had been implied by their wedding's initial coverage (the couple would go on to separate in 1992 and divorce in 1996)--making it an especially apt reference for this musical, which systematically dismantles the entire idea of a fairy tale with a happy ending.