Zenia Zambrano Moura as the Baker's Wife

When she found out Diamond Head Theatre was reviving "Into the Woods," she bought the Broadway cast DVD featuring Bernadette Peters as the Witch and Joanna Gleason as the Baker's Wife.

"I fell in love with her (the Wife), so I've been waiting all year to audition," says Moura, whose day job is in Kaiser Permanente's human resources department.

Why the Baker's Wife?

"She's a strong character, not a typical fairy-tale character; she has a lot of depth," she says.

Husband Scott Moura plays opposite her as the Baker. "We come home, we go over lines, we go over rehearsals together," she says. "It's been five or six weeks, and that's been our life."

She loves their duet together the best. "The fun-nest," she says.

Was Moura reared on fairy tales?

"I grew up with Disney — that was my link to the tales," says Moura. "I did love Cinderella; I always wanted to be her when I grew up. But I never read the Grimm tales. I would have freaked out."

In "Into the Woods," the Baker and the Baker's Wife need to assemble ingredients to undo a spell on their house, leading to a complicated, interlocking series of events tapping several classic storybook characters. That gets them to a happily-ever-after ending that marks Act I.

Act II, however, brings out the consequences of the characters' earlier actions.

Scott Moura as The Baker

For him, acting is an avocation — a happy one.

"I used to be nervous, lacking confidence, before I did theater," he says. No more.

"I've been doing stage now for nearly 10 years; at 44, I'm a late bloomer."

His appetite for the bright lights started with singing in a choir. Then he braved karaoke singing, which meant solo work. "That kinda pushed me on stage. 'You gotta do this,' I was told."

He recalls his feeling of pride when he appeared in his first stage musical: "Phantom of the Opera," the non-Lloyd Webber version at Diamond Head Theatre. "I just loved the experience," he says, his worst fears behind him.

Watching DVD versions of "Into the Woods" and "A Little Night Music" triggered his interest in Stephen Sondheim — and the Baker's role. "I guess I can relate to the guy in some way, so I fell in love with the character. It's a touching story."

It helps, too, that his off-stage wife, Zenia Zambrano Moura, portrays the Baker's Wife. Which brings a bit of convenience, when juggling lives and jobs.

They've been married just more than a year. "We kind of knew each other and we really got together doing

'Titanic' together," he says.

In "Woods," a witch puts a curse on the Bakers' house that can be reversed only by their going out in search of special substances — and characters.

For Moura, a curse would be "forgetting my lines."

Elizabeth Hartnett as Cinderella

"In those days, my mom had to make the costume, not buy it (it's now a Disney Store staple), and I had tiny glass slippers, a tiara and feather boa," says Hartnett, now 21.

In "Into the Woods," she plays the cinder-smeared princess, and has discovered that this version of the small-kid-time heroine "has a lot more layers. Going to the ball and deciding what she wants ... it's not all that easy. Cinderella has more depth than being a shallow goody-two-shoes."

Hartnett, a former Shooting Star (when she was in fourth grade) at Diamond Head Theatre, is home for the summer, but returns to DePauw University in Indiana, where she expects to earn her bachelor's degree in vocal performance.

A soprano, she's torn between musical theater and opera.

She has appeared in "Into the Woods" for a tri-school production at Mililani. And she has known fellow cast member Joseph Morales (Jack) since they played two of the Von Trapp children in a production of "Sound of Music."

Even if she chooses opera over musical comedy, Hartnett said, she knows she'll have a grand time on stage.

"When you do any theater, it's all about the joy of seeing the audience's reaction," she says.

"You know they're having a good time, and you realize that you had something to do with making their night better ... even maybe getting a lesson, some laughter, or a good cry."

Joseph Morales as Jack

"For sure, all the stuff I did in Hawai'i before my journey has been a tremendous help," he says. "I don't think it would have been possible to do what I've done without that training. But you just gotta go out there and do it; the effort is vital, the rest will come. I think passion is No. 1, even before talent, when you're doing theater."

He was the title character in "Aladdin," the musical at Disney's California Adventure park, for a year and a half. He workshopped a Broadway-bound musical, "Rock of Ages," which showcases '80s power ballads by Styx, Journey and White Snake, and he hopes to be part of the cast when it opens in New York next year. And after "Into the Woods," he's off to Toronto to rehearse for "Bombay Dreams," a Bollywood musical that played Broadway.

"It's been busy," he says.

Morales played Jack in one of Lisa Matsumoto's fairy-tale pidgin musicals (tunes by Roslyn Freitas Catracchia, musical director of "Woods"), but knew little about the bean-stalk climber in Sondheim's "Woods."

He particularly adores the route Jack takes here. "He starts out young and innocent and grows through the course of the show. The reality of life gets thrown at him, but he loves the journey, the steps taken in the process."