TAKE 51

The Story

Set inside the hit factories of 1960s New York, TAKE 51 follows Mara, a gifted session musician whose songs quietly shape the sound of a generation, credited to everyone but her.

In an industry obsessed with speed, ego, and the next chart-topping record, Mara hides her authorship behind the studio glass while male composers take the spotlight.

But when one of her songs becomes a breakout hit and the theft of her work is exposed publicly, the industry she helped build turns on her.

As publishers demand loyalty and ambition hardens into control, Mara must decide whether to protect her place in the machine or claim her own name — even if it costs her career, her partnership, and the only life she has known. The fifty-first take becomes more than a recording. It becomes a reckoning.

The World

The Brill Building is not nostalgia. It is a machine.

A vertical assembly line of songs — small rooms stacked on top of each other, pianos against thin walls, publishers pacing hallways, writers racing the clock. Melodies are built, tested, reshaped, and sold before the ink is dry.

In TAKE 51, the audience watches that machinery at work. Songs are written in real time. Credit is assigned in real time. Power shifts in real time.

For Mara, this world is both opportunity and erasure. Her talent fuels the room — but her name does not leave it.

The Brill becomes a pressure chamber where authorship is negotiable, ambition is transactional, and love is complicated by ownership.

The Characters

Mara

Session Musician • Songwriter

A gifted songwriter hiding in plain sight. Mara’s journey is one of stepping out from the background and learning that her voice, and her heart, deserve to be heard. Her unexpected partnership with Charlie forces her to face the music she’s been too afraid to claim.

Charlie

Producer • Composer

Brilliant, volatile, and endlessly driven, Charlie sees in Mara a collaborator who challenges and completes him — but his ambition threatens to burn everything down.

Ginny

Sax Player • Confidant

A sharp-witted session musician and Mara’s closest friend. Ginny sees her talent long before she sees it herself.

Ronnie

Singer • Rising Talent

Ambitious and hungry for the spotlight, Ronnie becomes Charlie’s great hope, until she takes a better offer, leaving him creatively and emotionally adrift.

Benny

Studio Manager

The quiet centre of the Brill Building’s chaos, a steady, grounding presence who sees more than he ever says.

The roles in TAKE 51 are written to reflect the cultural intersections of 1960s New York’s music industry and are open to inclusive casting.

The Music

These demos introduce the sound and storytelling of TAKE 51 — Brill Building pop craft with a modern emotional edge.

They’re presented as melody / lyric / dramatic-function demos: a clear sense of voice, character, and theatrical intention — not final tempos, orchestration, or performance.

Take 51 — Opening (Prologue / tone-setter)

Performed by Mara (vocals) & Ginny (ensemble)

After-hours in the Brill Building: a piano, a reel-to-reel, and one writer choosing to begin — before the room can decide who gets the credit.

Just a Demo (Mara solo / interior)

Performed by Mara

Mara records alone — no permission, no producer — and hears the truth in her own voice before anyone else can shape it.

The Brill Machine (Company / world)

Performed by Ensemble

Phones, pianos, publishers, and pressure — the hit-factory in full swing, where time is money and authorship is negotiable.

Want a broader listen? The full demo library includes duets, late-act material, and additional character writing — useful for musical direction, orchestration thinking, and range.

Listen to More Demos

Song List

A complete list of musical numbers from TAKE 51.

ACT I

Take 51 – Mara solo
Opening moment revealing Mara’s unseen work and quiet determination.
Brill Machine – Company
The world of the Brill Building ignites in a portrait of ambition and chaos.
Just a Demo – Mara solo
Mara lets her real voice emerge in a private, vulnerable late-night session.
Nothing on the Label – Mara solo
Mara confronts her invisibility and the ache of going uncredited.
Sing It Like You Mean It – Girl-group + Mara & Charlie
Mara rescues a failing session, proving her instinct and earning respect.
If I Let You In – Mara solo
She wrestles with vulnerability and the risks of letting Charlie close.
Tell Me You Feel It Too – Mara & Charlie duet
A new song — and an emotional connection — sparks between them.

Can’t Say No – Mara & Charlie duet
Their chemistry spills into a hit, deepening both success and complication.
Tastes Like Honey – Mara + Ginny & Attendants
Mara experiences the intoxicating world of newfound success.
Change Your Mind – Mara & Charlie duet
A moment of reconnection as they try to navigate trust and partnership.
Echo in the Dark (Fragment) – Mara
Mara searches for her true voice amid growing pressure.
Don’t Tell Me Who I Am – Mara solo
Mara finally asserts her autonomy and refuses to be defined by others.
Start with the Truth – Mara & Ginny duet
A reset grounded in honesty; Mara begins writing from truth again.
Act I Finale – “That’s Mine”
Mara discovers her work has been stolen, setting up the central conflict.

ACT II

The Sound of Smaller Rooms – Mara solo
Mara begins again, building from quiet honesty.
Unfinished Song (Fragment) – Mara
A searching musical idea that refuses to settle.
Out of the Blue – Mara & Charlie duet
A tentative reconciliation between them.
Write It Anyway – Mara solo
Mara recommits to telling the truth, no matter the cost.
Word Gets Around (The Spin) – Company
The company charts how Mara’s new song spreads—and mutates.
Don’t Know What This Is – Charlie solo
Charlie faces regret and the consequences of ambition.

Before We Let It Go – Mara & Charlie duet
A bittersweet farewell to the relationship they can’t sustain.
Take It Back – Mara + Band
Mara reclaims her authorship and refuses to disappear again.
And the Award Goes To / Write It Anyway (Reprise) – Company
Mara speaks the truth publicly, reclaiming her story.
Optional Coda – “Start from the Middle”
A quiet, unresolved closing moment between Mara and Charlie.

Staging

TAKE 51 is staged as an act of exposure. The audience does not watch finished songs, they watch them being made.

1. Rooms Within Rooms

Visibility and Hierarchy

Writing rooms, rehearsal spaces, offices, and hallways coexist on stage. Glass, frames, and shifting sightlines allow the audience to see who is present, and who is being overlooked.

Mara is often physically in the room but structurally outside it. The staging makes authorship visible, and invisibility visible too.

2. The Act of Writing

Process as Drama

Songs are drafted, argued over, interrupted, and reshaped in full view. A melody can shift the emotional temperature of the room. A lyric can reassign power.

The tension of collaboration becomes theatrical action, not decorative montage.

3. Music Made Live

Performance as Revelation

Musical moments are performed as lived events not abstract numbers. The company creates sound in real time, allowing the audience to witness who controls the narrative and who claims the microphone.

By the final act, the stage shifts from contained studio space to open confrontation where authorship is no longer negotiable.

Creative Team

Ian M. Wilson

Writer • Composer • Lyricist

I’ve always been interested in the spaces where creativity and ambition sit side by side, and quietly begin negotiating with each other.

Take 51 grew from a fascination with working relationships inside systems that reward certainty, polish, and marketability. Not because those things are wrong, but because they are persuasive. They feel like progress. They feel like safety.

Two people start writing songs because they love something; a chord change, a lyric that feels honest, a melody that lands in the chest. But slowly, without noticing, the room changes. Deadlines tighten. Hits are analysed. Success becomes measurable. No one forces the shift. It happens because they allow it.

I’m interested in what happens when ambition and authorship collide, how creative people adapt to survive inside a system, and how that adaptation can begin to reshape the work, then the relationship, and eventually the self.

Music in this piece is born in intimacy and revised in negotiation. The danger isn’t exploitation. It’s erosion. The slow, reasonable decisions that feel practical at the time and only later reveal what they have cost.

If I return to authorship in my work, it’s because I believe it isn’t just about credit. It’s about the space between two people when they create something together, and what happens when external pressures start speaking louder than instinct.

Take 51 asks:
At what point does collaboration stop sounding like harmony and start sounding like compromise?

Additional creative team to be confirmed as the development process progresses.

Contact

ian@sandstonefilms.com

Private Development Materials