Aria · The songwriter
Fear keeps her in unfinished verses. Sharing the work opens a world of possibility and makes betrayal devastating. Her arc moves through voice, loss and self-choice toward authorship.
Flagship original musical · In development
The First
Verse
A contemporary musical about ambition, friendship, first love, betrayal, and the courage to find your voice.
Theatrical presentation
A musical should feel like a show before the curtain rises.
The Playbill-style development cover gives The First Verse a clear theatrical identity alongside its public treatment, two-act score, character work, selected demos, and visual-development boards.
PLAYBILL
The listening room
Selected musical demos
Hear songs from the developing score. Demos are presented for portfolio and professional-review purposes.
The First Verse · Selected musical demos
Two Truths
Protected streaming preview · Written by Amy Matthew
The concept
Before the coffee shop opens, Aria is alone with a notebook full of beginnings. She wants a life in music but fears making the work real enough to fail. Sienna pushes her toward visibility; Jean asks her to protect the part of the work that belongs to her. When Luca enters that circle, creative recognition and attraction become difficult to separate.
The intimacy is real, but it is not uncomplicated. Evelyn already shares a life with Luca, and Julien recognizes patterns Luca would rather leave unnamed. As the music moves from private pages toward public performance, friendship, authorship and divided loyalties collide. Aria’s central journey is not simply to be chosen by someone else: it is to become the author of her own life.
People & relationships
Characters with something at stake.
Luca · Connection and avoidance
He can communicate through music while withholding the truths that would make his relationships honest. His attraction to Aria exists alongside a life with Evelyn and unresolved history with Julien.
Sienna · Support turning into possession
She recognizes Aria’s gift and resents standing beside it. Encouragement becomes entitlement as her own hunger for recognition overtakes the friendship she promised to protect.
Jean · The friend who stays
Jean notices what others miss: the anxiety behind Aria’s humor and the ownership beneath Sienna’s praise. Her loyalty is active, protective and grounded in letting Aria keep her own voice.
Evelyn · A life already shared
Evelyn is living with Luca while he is emotionally elsewhere. Her story gives the romantic conflict a human cost and follows her movement from waiting for honesty toward choosing herself.
Julien · The past that speaks
A former relationship makes Julien a witness to Luca’s recurring patterns. Control, hurt and vulnerability complicate his confrontations and his own understanding of what love should mean.
Noah · Steadiness returned
Noah’s instinct is to make sure everyone else is all right. With Jean, that care becomes reciprocal, offering a quieter relationship alongside the musical’s more destructive entanglements.
Mom · Memory and foundation
The remembered maternal voice provides an inner source of strength. It belongs to Aria’s recovery of self, reaching beyond career approval or romantic validation.
Story journey
How the world opens up.
Act I · Letting the work be heard
The coffee shop, audition room, bar, diner, rooftop and studio trace a move from private fragments to shared possibility. Attraction grows as the people around Aria reveal conflicting ideas of what her future should be.
Act II · The cost of being heard
Hidden loyalties and stolen work turn opportunity into rupture. The emotional movement passes through confrontation and collapse toward a voice that can continue without surrendering ownership.
Selected score landmarks
Where dialogue becomes music.
The First Verse
Aria gives sound to the fear that has kept her work unfinished.
City Doesn’t Wait
The creative circle pushes against hesitation and the city’s pace.
Waiting in the Wings
Sienna’s hunger develops beneath her encouragement.
This Is How It Starts
The rooftop connection turns possibility into emotional risk.
We Wrote This
Shared music makes questions of connection and ownership tangible.
Don’t Disappear
Jean’s warning gives loyalty a voice.
You Stole My Lines
The radio moment makes the loss of authorship public.
I Took It
Sienna confronts the reasoning behind her betrayal.
Love Isn’t Chaos
Conflicting ideas of love become direct confrontation.
Almost Us
The relationship faces the distance between feeling and action.
The One Who Stays
Jean gives steadiness its own musical space.
Second Verse
Aria’s voice takes ownership of the ending.
World & visual storytelling
The notebook is the central physical image: unfinished work becomes shared promise, then contested authorship. The coffee shop returns with altered meaning; the rooftop creates intimacy; the studio makes ambition tangible. In the final stage picture, separate ensemble voices leave space for Aria at the center.
From the script
Read a scene. Hear the characters.
Selected excerpts from Amy Matthew’s development script. Open a scene below.
Act I · Scene 1 · Before the coffee shop opens
The First Verse · Written by Amy Matthew · Selected excerpt
SCENE 1: COFFEE SHOP, BEFORE OPEN 6 AM. Early morning light bleeds through windows. Empty coffee shop. ARIA stands behind counter in yesterday’s sweatshirt, notebook open. Reading what she’s written. Crossing it out viciously. She’s reading and rereading, trying to figure out if any of it’s worth keeping. ARIA Somewhere between who I am… and who I could be. She stares at the words like they might suddenly make sense. They don’t. ARIA That’s not even a sentence. That’s just… sad. That’s just you being sad in iambic pentameter or whatever pretentious thing you’re calling it today.
Act I · Scene 2 · Who owns the song?
The First Verse · Written by Amy Matthew · Selected excerpt
SIENNA This is really good. ARIA Don’t say it like that. SIENNA Like what? ARIA Like you mean it. Like you’re evaluating it. Like you’re already thinking about what comes next. SIENNA I do mean it. She taps one specific line on the page. The line about truth. About being afraid to say the real thing. SIENNA This is not coffee-shop good. This is “change things” good. This is the kind of song that makes people feel less alone. This is the kind of song that people remember. JEAN Finish it because it’s yours. Not because she told you to. Not because it’s good. Because it’s yours and nobody else gets to own it. SIENNA hands the notebook back, but her eyes stay on Aria. There’s possession underneath the encouragement. Like she’s already planning something. SIENNA You write the truth. I’ll make them hear it. I promise you that. ARIA smiles. She believes in that promise. JEAN watches SIENNA’s grip on the notebook linger just a second too long. JEAN’s eyes narrow. She sees something shift in the room.
Act I · Group night · Jean and Noah
The First Verse · Written by Amy Matthew · Selected excerpt
JEAN You’re doing that thing again. NOAH What thing? JEAN Making sure everyone else is okay before you get anything for yourself. NOAH Someone has to. JEAN That would be me. I’m usually the one who does that. NOAH Then maybe we can take turns. They stand together. The space between them charged with potential.
Continue the conversation.
For script review, creative collaboration and development inquiries.
Request project materialsInside the development
Story, character & visual world.
Open each image to explore the musical’s development artwork. All imagery is conceptual and does not depict an existing cast or production.
Professional materials
Developed beyond the poster.
Public synopsisCharacter breakdownsTwo-act story architectureSong list & selected demosVisual-development packageAdditional materials by request
Full scripts, private demos, and confidential development documents are shared only for appropriate professional review.
Theatrical & development inquiries