A young woman rushes into a clearing. She is lost. She is alone. She is searching wistfully for...nothing. But there's plenty of wist. She slowly becomes aware of a pre-recorded chorus of people droning on about the colors of the landscape. Yawn. This, coupled with her failed search for nothing, proves sufficient motivation for her to make an immediate exit downstage right of the Forest of Trees With Only Fronts.
Five meters to the left, a coterie of young men wearing inflatable metal vests wheel in a discarded Cirque de Soleil papier mache Percheron clad in a green velveteen skirt atop of which is perched the wee-est prince in all the land. The prince endeavors to prove his princeliness by tossing a whopping 6 ft. of rope off stage and hauling the giant hand puppet from Virginia Rep's 2005 Barksdale production of "Into the Woods" out of the wings. He solidifies this stalwart image by slaying a puff of smoke with his grossly oversized slingshot. This prince is pretty baller for one so small, you think. Then you realize- Oh! He's not small! It's just that his horse and slingshot are bespoke. For either LeBron James or the Hulk.
You are distracted from this quandary by the scooting onstage of a styrofoam stone wall, a well, and 1/6 of a cottage. There's some discussion of the local caste system which is rightfully upstaged by the aforementioned coterie of young men doing yoga behind the well while gripping their swords on both ends. This is fascinating because were these swords not props, this yoga would undoubtedly result in hand amputations and visits to the nearest emergency room. But I digress. These are merely the musings of a step-sister  lounging in the wings because she got ready too early and has nothing to do other than pester Durron before his entrance.
Durron enters. Then a boy I've known for 10 years since he played a child in "Fiddler on the Roof" and could now be aged anywhere from 11 to 54 enters carrying a stack of presents. That's my cue. I adjust my tit ruffle and make sure I'm still capable of snapping a fan. I enter. I sneer at Durron. I leave. I will not have anything else to do in this play for a solid fifteen minutes and therefore cannot report on any key plot developments.
Cinderella sings a song about sitting on a chair while sitting on a stool.
Then it turns out the prince is giving a ball. Great. Now we have to wheel on numerous rickety carts festooned with re-purposed portraits of Scott Wichmann and do an exhausting dance number replete with enthusiasm. On top of which we must pretend extreme interest in invitations which only look important because someone requisitioned the stash of VA Rep Opening Night Newberry Award/Caldecott Medal stickers to use as seals.
A man tears off all my clothes in the dark. He replaces them with orange hip blimps. To be fair, he also places ostrich feathers in my hair, so it's not a total loss. I scurry behind the set, doing my level best not to snag my hip blimps on anything important.  Like the enchanted carriage. Or Mitchell.
Cinderella and I perform corset acting. We are joined by Susan and Havy as we gaze into an imaginary mirror and pretend to eat and powder each other's faces. The audience kindly goes along with us through this shenaniganery and is fully invested as our house flies into the rafters and we are "off to the ball."
But hold your pre-lit Lowe's holiday lawn ponies- before we can arrive at the ball, there's a lot of shit that has to go down. Katrinah kicks things off by tossing her costume down a well and un-sheathing her wand- a delicate and dainty instrument only intact thanks to Bruce Rennie and several drills, industrial strength staples, and glue guns. Through the power of magic, fog, and 48+ hours of tech rehearsal, Mitchell and Danny are transformed from stuffed animals into French Revolutionists. They perform a silent high five and then take ahold of Cinderella's tote bag bodice straps and wrest away her peasant garb to reveal the most elegant christening gown Richmond, VA has ever seen. Cinderella ascends into her mobile pumpkin jail and is whisked away offstage. Which is unfortunate as the ball takes place onstage.
Nothing of import really happens at the ball save the following:
1. The dance ensemble of SPARC's "Newsies" performs.
2. Cinderella meets and has a brief chat with the Prince just in time to start singing as accompaniment to the pas de deux being danced around and betwixt them by two ball guests who don't know how to read a room and insist on performing their number right in the middle of the meet cute.
3. I eat cake made of spackle.
The ball is then over. Everyone leaves in a rush and I shout and complain for a few minutes. I am slightly soothed by hurling my left high heel into the wings as hard as I can and trying to hit someone who is either The Prince's Royal Advisor or The Man Who Has The Best Voice I've Ever Heard. But I can't be sure which because I can't see. Safety first.
What follows is a short ballet. Set in the woods. The climax of which is a fox climbing a tree with its spine.
Cinderella is exhausted after this ballet and sinks to the ground. She sings (somewhat rudely) a love song about an extremely tall blue-eyed man. Who is not in this play.
The house falls back out of the ceiling. Susan, Havy, and I start drinking.
Several bouts of acting later, the prince decides to throw a banquet.
A summary of all high points between here and the end:
1. The fairy godmother is revealed to be a squatter.
2. Durron points out that from the wings, all the fog surrounding Cinderella during her transformation makes it look like the fairy godmother has potentially lit her on fire.
3. The pope.
So I suppose the moral of this tale is that a young girl who starts out lost and alone searching in the proverbial woods for meaning and purpose can, with the help of a homeless invisible glamour queen and a couple of stuffed animals, learn that anything is possible if you have enough magnets sewn into your dress.