BY JIM FARBER >LA.COM

An aura of excitement, hard work and a tinge of panic surrounds rehearsals for Torrance Theatre Company's production of Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods," which will open tonight at the George Nakano Theatre of the Torrance Cultural Arts Center.

The original costume designs by Aja Bell are very much in the works. Director Jim Hormel is scurrying from one corner of the rehearsal room to the other in an effort to take in the 360-degree challenge of staging the musical in the round. The cast is doing its best to cope with working in a different space every few days.

And producer Gia Inferrera is in the corner silently pulling her hair out.

"It's been intense," Hormel admits, taking a breath during a break in the action. "This is a whole new way of looking at this show."

Hormel compares the experience to playing three-dimensional chess with Commander Spock.

"I have to run around and look at the show from all sides to make sure everyone can see," he said. "I'm very nervous because so much is going to come down to the last minute."

As far as anyone can tell, this may be the first time Sondheim's fairy tale musical has been staged in the round. That's one reason the promotional posters proclaim this will be "Into the Woods" "as you have never seen it."

It's also a production, according to Bell, that is deliberately pushing boundaries and breaking rules about how "Into the Woods" is supposed to look.

"Traditionally, whenever `Into the Woods' is done, it's very Disney fairy tale," said Bell, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. "But Sondheim is much more adult, more realistic and darker than that. So the design concept for our show is very different.

"For example, the Witch is traditionally very ugly - the classic `Snow White' idea of a witch. "My concept is the Witch is beautiful. I think the issue is about her having power and losing it, not about being ugly. So, in Act 1 she takes up a lot of space on stage because she's a tree."

A tree? That's definitely a novel interpretation.

"Rapunzel is her own tower. "We're putting her on an 8-foot ladder. Her dress covers the ladder, so she looks like a tower. And the Prince will actually climb her."

The only problem, Inferrera confided, is that the young woman playing Rapunzel is afraid of heights.

"The two Princes and the Wolf," Bell explained, "are all about sex."

"The Princes are beautiful - everything a woman idealizes a man to be," she said. "They're like `GQ' models in long coats and velvet pants with codpieces. The Wolf is all in leather with a whip for a tail."

Directors of shows that are considered standards are often leery of taking a chance with them, said Hormel, who directed Torrance Theatre Company's highly successful "West Side Story."

"They want their show to look like the Broadway production, because that's what people expect," he said. "I'm not interested in that. I'm more interested in creating something new. We're not exactly doing a modern version of `Into the Woods.' But our fairy tale is going to have a very different look to it."

Win, lose or draw, Bell, Hormel, Inferrera and the whole Torrance Theatre Company deserve a lot of credit for not to playing it safe.

Jim Farber (310) 540-5511, Ext. 416 jim.farber@dailybreeze.com

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INTO THE WOODS

>When: Opens at 8 tonight and plays at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through March 16, with additional shows at 7:30 p.m. March 12 and 13.

>Where: George Nakano Theatre, Torrance Cultural Arts Center, 3330 Civic Center Drive , Torrance.

>Tickets: $25.

>Information: (310) 781-7171, www.myspace.com/torrancetheatreco.