As anybody who has read the fairy tale “Snow White” knows, the prince brings the titular princess back to life and they all live happily ever after…or do they? Concord author Jay Hartlove explores several questions about the Snow White story in a new musical sequel titled “Mirror’s Revenge,” which premieres Friday at Vallejo’s Bay Area Stage.

Hartlove is an award-winning fantasy novelist and costumer, but “Mirror’s Revenge” is his first play. The production has had a long history with a nontraditional origin story. It all began more than a decade ago when Hartlove attended a concert by the rock band Evanescence at San Jose State University. They played their biggest hit, “Bring Me to Life,” which struck a chord with Hartlove.

“I got to thinking that the song might actually be about Snow White,” he said.

While the song is not about Snow White, lyrics like “My spirit’s sleeping somewhere cold/until you find it there and lead it back home” are certainly appropriate to the story. Nonetheless, the song sent Hartlove off on a train of thought about what Snow White must have gone through in the story.

“I got to thinking about how in the traditional telling of the Snow White story, we see it from the prince’s point of view and the dwarves’ point of view and everyone else’s point of view,” he said. “We really don’t see it from inside what happened to her.”

Hartlove also thought about how confusing the motivations were in the original story, such as why Snow White’s stepmother would want to kill her because “she grew up pretty.”

“This is feudal Germany,” he said. “You marry off an attractive stepdaughter strategically to grow your kingdom, right? I mean, this is a huge asset. Why would she want to kill the girl? I was thinking, Maybe there’s more going on here.”

Hartlove had other questions, such as what happened to Snow White’s father and how Snow White could truly live “happily ever after” when she had previously been dead for six months. As a result, he wrote “Mirror’s Revenge” to pick up where the original story left off while exploring the deeper elements of the tale.

“A lot of people who have redone the original story, they’re always telling the original story over again,” he said. “This is telling what comes next, but in telling what comes next, it then fills in what was really going on in the first story.”

Hartlove said he wanted to do something in the vein of “Wicked,” which provides a different telling of “The Wizard of Oz” but dives deeper into aspects of the familiar story. In the case of “Mirror’s Revenge,” the mirror who tries to convince the queen to kill Snow White is actually the spirit of the archenemy of Snow White’s dead father.

“There’s this twisted family drama about revenge and families and feuds,” he said. “It’s a more intimate story in that you’re talking about warring families over generations.”

“Mirror’s Revenge” adds other twists to the original story, including making the dwarves displaced Siamese monks. One thing Hartlove did not do was portray Snow White’s strength by giving her a sword, as was done in recent Hollywood adaptations like “Mirror Mirror” and “Snow White and the Huntsman.”

“That’s not the Snow White I know,” he said. “Her strength comes from her unlimited ability to love and to take care of people and to be this source of strength. That’s how she ends up winning, relying on her focus to be there and be the loving person that she is. You don’t need to put a sword in somebody’s hand for them to be effective.”

Nonetheless, Hartlove said his play retains the dark elements of the original story and most of its adaptations.

“The story has a tradition of looking at the dark underbelly side of the story, and I continue with that same notion,” he said.

Hartlove originally submitted the story for a Los Angeles screenplay competition as a sequel to the 1937 Disney movie. The judge loved the screenplay but suggested Hartlove remove the Disney elements and make it an original story. Hartlove rewrote it and showed it to his actor friends who saw it more as a play than a movie. He rewrote it again with the help of some recording artist friends who helped write the music.

“Over the next three years, I parsed out what part of the story should be told in song versus words,” he said. “We divided the story up and wrote melodies for all of the songs.”

Hartlove said the process of collaborating with composers was fun because of the additional input he received.

After some open casting calls, Hartlove was able to assemble a group of actors to perform the story on stage. He said it took a while to land key roles, but he believes he has the perfect cast.
“I could not ask for better,” he said. “We ended up landing exactly the right person for every role.”

Hartlove will premiere “Mirror’s Revenge” with a gala opening at the San Jose Convention Center on Thursday, but the play will begin its first official run Friday at Bay Area Stage. Hartlove became involved with the Vallejo theatrical company when his daughter acted in their production of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” BAS co-producer Jeff Lowe agreed to let Hartlove rent space in the theater for his company Jay Writes Productions.

After the BAS run finishes, Hartlove said he will continue to polish the story and try to get it published where it could be chosen for community theaters and college productions.

“My objective is to get it published and share it with the world,” he said.

Hartlove thinks audiences will enjoy the explanations of Snow White’s story elements and the character-driven nature of it.

“The characters have grown, so I think people will enjoy seeing how characters that they’re familiar with from the old story have grown and moved and become more.”

“Mirror’s Revenge” opens at 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 17 at Bay Area Stage, located at 515 Broadway St. in Vallejo. The play will continue to be performed at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets range in prices from $18 to $25 and can be purchased online at MirrorsRevenge.EventBrite.com. For reservations, call 649-1053. For more information on the play, visit flowinglass.com/snow.html.