Local Author Bringing Books To Life

A children’s book character is taking a big leap from the page to the stage.

Amherst author/illustrator Maryann Cocca-Leffler has been collaborating with a creative team to turn her children’s books “Princess K.I.M. and The Lie That Grew” and “Princess Kim and Too Much Truth” into an original musical.

“I have these ideas and have to minimize them into a 32-page book where every word is important,” she said. “Now I have to do the opposite and expand it into a musical where the characters have bigger lives and history.”

“Princess K.I.M. The Musical” is about a girl named Kim who moves to a new town with her dad and theatrical Grandma. She lies and tells her new friends that she is a princess, but her little lie grows out of control, causing her life to get very complicated.

Cocca-Leffler got the idea from her own childhood experience with lying, where she told friends that her father owned the Coca-Cola company. She always thought that Kim’s story would work great as a play.

She brought the idea to Toby Tarnow a over a year ago, who is the artistic director and founder of the Riverbend School of Theater Arts in Milford.

Tarnow loved the idea and offered to serve as a co-adapter to turn the story into a musical. They then brought Andrew Cass from Milford to the team to serve as the composer/lyricist for the project.

The script and music are written and all that is left is to arrange the music, and finish the vocal conductors score and book. Cocca-Leffler said that the songs will be diverse and cater to a young, diverse audience through styles such as hip hop and contemporary.

Each song is based on a part of the story, for example one of them is titled “She's just an old lady in a Buick,” which is a direct line from the book.

“We went through the book and and put sticky notes in the parts of the book that would make a great music piece,” said Cocca-Leffler.

Well-known New York arranger-composer-producer Premik Russell Tubbs also came on board to compose three pieces of music for the show. He has worked with famous faces such as Whitney Houston, Billy Joel and Santana.

“It has been a really nice collaboration,” said Cocca-Leffler. “We have a nice creative group.”

They have been working since September 2010 to adapt the story and aim to have it professionally produced for the stage in 2013. From there, the team wants to launch the show nationwide, and of course have it performed in Amherst and surrounding towns.

There is an interested NYC licensing agency that suggested the team develop two versions of the show: one being the full version and the other being a junior storybook version that would run in under an hour. Cocca-Leffler said that children’s theaters all over the country want a one-hour show for young kids that have shorter attention spans.

Kickstarter.com, a funding site for creative projects, recently accepted their project to help bring the production to the stage. They have collected $1,840 of the $10,000 needed since launching the fundraising campaign last week.

Backers receive bonuses like t-shirts, autographed books, song downloads and original illustrations depending on how much the pledge. Backers will also get a pre-release of their first single that will soon be released on iTunes. The song is titled “Be Strong” and is sung by Amherst student Olivia Vordenberg.

The funding only goes through if the group reaches their $10,000 goal before April, 15 this year.

“We are hoping people support us,” said Cocca-Leffler. “I don’t have a big publishing company backing me on this, it is just us.”

Those interested in pledging money to the project can visit their Kickstarter page. More information on the project can be found at www.princesskimthemusical.com or on their Facebook page.