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Conrad A. Panganiban

Conrad A. Panganiban

playwright | conradap@gmail.com

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The Process of Writing a New Play…

Posted on 01/11/202004/27/2021 by Conrad

UPDATED: Visit The Final Search post to read the finished script!

I stumbled upon this 5 minute play opportunity from Cone Man Running Productions in Houston, TX: https://www.conemanrunning.com/submit and thought it’d be fun to write for. I have a couple of hours before my ride comes, so what better to add more content onto my blog than to document my process. What follows is my usual thought process for a play:

I am an empty canvas on this! I have no idea what I’m going to write about. But I need to peep out the requirements at the link above…

For plays, no less than 3 pages and no more than 4 pages (12 pt font and 1” margins)

https://www.conemanrunning.com/submit

Okay. I could do this. Sounds interesting! I’m using the online scriptwriting app, WriterDuet so it already has the formatting ready for me to use.

Now, for a story idea…. I’m writing this staring outside the window of Philz Coffee at the end of Market Street in Downtown San Francisco, CA where the Ferry Building is right across the street. Watching all these tourists walking by mean. Some are stopping at street vendor selling toys. Some enter this coffee shop. Occasionally, I’ll see people walking by looking at their phones or a map…. that’s it. To establish a quick scene (3-4 pages), I’ll have the establishing “shot” of a tourist looking at a map!

Now, what could disturb this moment? Got it! A person, No! Two people who are teamed up on a Scavenger Hunt. And typically, these hunters need to hunt for something and when they find it, they need to take a picture with it. In this scene, they have to find a tourist and take a selfie with this tourist. Boom. We have the players and the objective.

The natural conflict would be that the Tourist makes it difficult for these hunters to take a picture with. Let’s raise the stakes too: this selfie is a part of a million dollar game mmm… that sounds cliche… the team that wins free trips around the world for a year. That sounds interesting to me. In order to win the contest, they need to take a selfie of a tourist who is already traveling. Makes me wonder more about WHY does this team want to win this contest?

  • Never traveled outside of the city
  • Never had the money to be able to travel
  • The opportunity to find the mom who left them when they were two years old

Woah. That raised stakes like into another atmosphere. Now what about this is the final picture that they needed to take… and they get live tweet updates about the other teams and their progress. They were in first place all this time leaving their chances of changing their lives rests on this final tourist… oooo… what if the tourist turns out to be their mom at the end of the play and she was the one who was looking at the map in search for THEM! WTF?!?! Oh shit!

TIME OUT! I’m copyrighting this idea at 3:13pm PST on December 31st, 2019. Not that anyone would use this, but CYA, right. And I’ll leave this in DRAFT MODE until AFTER I get a confirmation from the company that the play has been received. I think I’m really overthinking this, but again, covering my ass. And this is STILL not an assumption that this play will get picked up. Shoot, I still have to write it… but I really do like this 4 page play!

This is crazy! I think I found my play… Now just write it down. I’ll probably figure out the name of the play after it’s done. For now, the working title is SCAVENGER HUNT. The Character names are TOURIST, HUNTER01, and HUNTER02.

Quick outline:

  • TOURIST is looking at a map
  • HUNTER01 and HUNTER02 ask TOURIST for a selfie
  • TOURIST asks why
  • HUNTERS say that it’s for a contest
  • TOURIST asks what is the prize
  • HUNTERS say that it’s for a trip around the world
  • TOURIST refuses
  • HUNTERS reveal the real reason for wanting the selfie
  • TOURIST reveals that she is the person they are looking for
  • End of play

The other part of this is to figure out what kind of character are our characters. For me this helps to flesh them out. For example, with the TOURIST, what about her would make her refuse the HUNTERS?

Quick aside: I’m wishing that I can make these people POC. just to give it that extra nuance. Like the reason she left them wasn’t because she wanted to, but because she was forced to. But it was also to make sure that they had a better life then if she stayed with them.

Another aside: Am I spending too much time on these details for a 4 PAGE PLAY? lol.

Back to the original aside (having the actors be POC). I’ve always struggled with this because of the worry that this play won’t be produced because a POC cast isn’t available in order to be produced. That would suck. But that’s reality. I’m going to push for it because I think it’s important and would add way more context to the play, political or not. Damnit!

Okay, that settles that. TOURIST will be a POC who left the country in order for her children to have a better life. Ulk. Sounds Miss Saigon-y but if the intentions are there, then I think it would be okay.

So, the TOURIST should have an accent because she’s a TOURIST. She is a person from another part of the world visiting the place where these two HUNTERS have found her in America. But what would give her pause to not take a selfie with them:

  • Afraid that her picture may get turned over to the authorities
  • She has a tourist visa so she shouldn’t be afraid
  • Privacy laws? Just a private person
  • Needs to appear older than the 2 HUNTERS since she is going to be their mother after all
  • Maybe she’s fearful of their father… maybe another reason why she left
  • Maybe they were born in another country and was brought to America by their father… they were kidnapped by the father… dun dun DUN!!!
  • She’s afraid of her picture being shared on Facebook or IG (in fear that the person she’s trying to hide from might see it and try to find her)

My main objective for the 1st act of this story is to make it really feel this scene feel very normal… very real. That this is a real situation between an ordinary TOURIST who is being “aggressively” asked to do something she doesn’t want to do. So there has to be a real tug-of-war between the two wants and why:

  • TOURIST WANT: Not to have her picture taken
  • TOURIST WHY NOT: She doesn’t want her photo to be on the internet
  • TOURIST REAL WHY NOT: So that her ex doesn’t find out where she is
  • HUNTERS WANT: To take a selfie with her
  • HUNTERS WHY: To win the contest
  • HUNTERS REAL WHY: To be able to see their mom

The above in GREEN are the points I need to focus on in order to redirect any suspicion of their relationship for the… is there a technical turn for a twist ending? On top of this, in reading the submission call, these plays will also be an audience judged competition. Meaning that this needs to be a comedy since comedies win audiences over. Maybe I’m assuming, but it’s a safe assumption.

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Headshot of Conrad A. Panganiban

Conrad A. Panganiban (he/him/his) is an award-winning Filipino American playwright representing the San Francisco Bay Area. His plays include Daryo’s All-American Diner, Welga, and River’s Message. Conrad’s work has been produced by Bindlestiff Studio, The Chikahan Company, CIRCA Pintig (IL), the MaArte Theatre Collective, and CATS (Contemporary Asian Theatre Scene) . Awards include: Best Play of 2023, Daryo’s All-American Diner (BroadwayWorldAwards Chicago), Best New Play, Daryo’s All-American Diner (Chicago Reader, Best of 2023), Susan Fairbrook Playwright Fund Awardee (TheatreWorks Silicon Valley), 2023 New Voices in Comedy Writing Fellowship (Killing My Lobster), James Milton Highsmith Award Winner (SFSU), National Ten-Minute Play Festival Finalist (Actors Theatre of Louisville), and Bay Area Playwrights Festival Semi-Finalist (Playwrights Foundation). Resident Artist: Bindlestiff Studio. Member: Dramatist Guild of America, and Theatre Bay Area. MFA, San Francisco State University. @consplayspace

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