storyteller
Twice Upon a Time
Identical twin princesses Contenza and Jensina are born the night of their brother's murder. Connie is kidnapped by someone plotting to take the throne and ends up growing up in the village, her true parents thinking her dead. Jensina grows up a princess. The two never meet. But they do switch places. Several times. On accident. Without meeting each other. This causes massive confusion and a complex love hexagon where no one is who they seem to be. And there's an evil chancellor trying to kill the royal families of Evanslei, Taliva, and Rayourn and take over the world.
Did I mention it's a musical?
Synopsis
The Story Behind the Story
The idea came to me shortly before visiting Disneyworld with my family in 2009. My little sister has always been a big supporter of my writing and would stay up all night long, loving even my most ridiculous stories and pulling me out of the plot holes I dug myself into. So I came up with this idea to write a story for her, and Twice Upon a Time was born. I told it orally to her before I decided it to write it down. It took me a few years to figure out that the story was not going to work as a novel, and after taking a screenwriting class in 2012, I realized that that was exactly what Twice Upon a Time was. Not only that, but I also soon realized that it was a musical, so I began writing the music and lyrics as well as the screenplay.
What I imagine Micah, Jennie, Connie, and Nolan to look like. I can't really draw, but I found a website where I can create my characters. They have credit in the lower left corner.
A medley of the songs in the musical. I recorded it for a composition scholarship (which I received) and made the pictures on various websites to give you something to look at. (HINT: Connie's always in yellow, pink, and green, and Jennie's always in blue, purple, and green, if you want to tell them apart)
Want more?
You can find an entire facebook page dedicated to this musical on facebook: Twice Upon Time
You can also read rough parts of the screenplay and view more concept art on my deviantArt page.
Song Samples
I compose on an online program called Noteflight, which allows me to embed my compositions directly to my website. Have a listen! The songs are in chronological order as they appear in the musical. Some are still under construction.
"A Day in the Life"
the opening number
"Princess at Heart" which is sung shortly after Connie and Jennie swap places for the first time and don't know what's going on.
"That Girl" is sung after Connie-as-Jennie is brought to the palace and has no clue how to act like a princess. This is by far the roughest of the compositions and is reprised by the villain later in the movie when he figures out what's so odd about those girls.
If this sounds familiar, it should. "Me" was originally supposed to be kind of like "A Princess at Heart." However, I ended up sticking this at the end of "A Day in the Life" with a different melody for Jennie. But I'd thought I'd include it anyway.
The love themes. They can be layered on top of each other, which I think is really cool. It's called polyphony.
Status
In editing and under construction. As you can see, not all of the songs are complete yet, and they're not orchestrated. I'll probably work on them more when I get to college and start learning about music theory and composition. Until then, I just have one scene to add and I'll be done with the writing and have to get on to editing, round one.