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The music sweeps the audience into a playful, weird, surreal world.

 

Main colors of the composition will be the music box, the piano, and a multi-layered synth pad. The piano is chosen as a symbol for reality. And the music box is chosen for its childish, nostalgic and dream like quality. The pad will add to the mysterious atmosphere of the play. A musical theme will be developed for each of the 7 tales, and reiterated in different flavors throughout the play.

 

The concept of time is crucial to this play. The play unfolds in a fan like structure. Fairy tales are broken into two parts, and the first halves are told first and then the second haves are told in the reverse order. The music will aim to bring subconscious connections between the

separated halves of the fairy tales to the audience's minds and by

doing this we manipulate time. The diagram to the right depicts

this unique structure of the play with the red curves representing

the fairy tales The Three Blind Queens, The Princess Who Wouldn't

Laugh, The Three Snake Leaves, Allerleira, and Seven Swans. The

blue dots represent the story  Stolen Pennies,and the green line 

represent the framing story Left in the Forest.

 

Before the play starts, the audience will hear a realistic solo piano playing a sweet and peaceful, lullaby like version of the musical theme. It will segue into the same piece performed by a solo music box as the play opens and the audience is brought into the dream of a little named Tony (which is not revealed to the audience until the very end of the play).

 

In the first half of the play where the first halves of the fairy tales are told, the music will gradually pick up momentum by incorporating more layers of sound. The musical theme will be altered to suit the level of tension of each scene.

 

At the center of the play, the music will reach its climax as the play goes in to telling the second halves of the fairy tales.

 

In the second half of the play, the music will essentially do the reverse of the first half of the play. The instrumentation and mood of the pieces will match their counterparts from the first half of the play. And hopefully, the audience's perception of time can be manipulated subconsciously.

 

The play ends as the boy Tony wakes up and realizes it has all been a dream. The audience also learns this fact right at this moment, as the music segues from a solo music box at this point to a realistic solo piano which matches the music before the play starts. And we've come full circle.