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Conrad A. Panganiban

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playwright | conradap@gmail.com

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welga one act program

WELGA: The One Act at Lenaea & Trust

Posted on 02/09/2020 by Conrad

I’m sitting in a pretty fancy shmancy Barnes & Noble in Folsom, CA hoping to get some writing in after FINALLY seeing the one-act version of WELGA hit the stage (at 8:30am!) as part of the Lenaea High School Theatre Festival at the Harris Center of the Arts at Folsom Lake College.

First off, I’M SO PROUD of the work these actors put into the play! This was once again sublimely directed by Christina Chun Moslen.

I don’t remember if I posted this already, but the process of getting the full-length to a one-act was arduous. One, the amount of time needed to compress the play was daunting, but also exhilarating! It took YEARS to come to the final version of the 2 act, and only a couple of days to shrink it down. I was SO NERVOUS about how or if it would still work. Because of work and distance, I never had the chance to help with redoing the script after my initial cuts… so it was more blindly done. Even though, that should have been nerve wrecking, my nerves had to rest on the trust I have in our director and her cast – just one of the things I love about theatre.

Lemme talk about that – trust. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely get why some playwrights would have reservations about trusting a director/producer/cast with their baby! A Play, their story with its characters are born from a very deep place. Without this creation, NOTHING would be seen, shared, or experienced by an audience. Usually, the writer’s intent is what creates this experience. What do I want the audience to feel through the world I’ve created for them? I feel that should be a powerful thing to have and wield. I’ve said it before, hearing an audience laugh at something I wrote is what first made me want to pursue playwriting! “I made all these strangers share a common experience?” With WELGA, I created an opportunity for people who know me from a can of beans a chance to shed a tear or two. Again, powerful moments. It’s an awesome feeling knowing that my words were intended to make these emotions happen. With theatre, because there are so many others directly involved in trying to convey these same emotions, opportunities may be missed in fulfilling that intent with a different choice. An inflection on another word could place emphasis on Plot B instead of Plot B. A left turn instead of a right could change the direction of an emotion. There could be hundreds of things that can happen between typing END OF PLAY and hearing applause after final Act of Opening Night.

So, where did my trust come from? It came from the production of my very first play called, BORDERS in 2005. This 10-minute was intended to be hella creepy about a vigilante who stalked the blogs of domestic violence survivors in order to exact revenge on their partners. Very dark subject, yes? Back then, I didn’t know the process of getting a play did, so I was very hands off. So, the first time I saw this play was in front of an audience. What I saw was very different from what I saw in my head when I wrote this. When I saw dark… the director saw light and comedic moments while using my words! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! AND WHY ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE LAUGHING?!! AND WHY IS THE AUDIENCE STILL CREEPED OUT BY THE ENDING WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I INTENDED?!?!?

Even though I wrote a thriller in my head (sans light moments), the director expertly, found the ironic glints of comedy and used them to create the arc which made my sinister ending MORE SINISTER!

Trust.

Either this was a stroke of extreme fortune in that I got to learn this lesson after my first play or it was the permanent lesson the Theatre Gods has bestowed upon me, but I’m glad that taught me to trust in the people putting my words on stage.

Other lessons gained from this experience:

  • If possible, ALWAYS ask for an initial meeting with the director to go over the script and answer or explain any parts of the play that doesn’t make sense. Also, make sure the director knows your intents of the different beats in your play. It’s a good way to not be surprised by a choice that goes inadvertently “wrong.”
  • If possible, ASK to be a part of the first table read! Make yourself available to answer any questions that the cast may have. Create the sense that the playwright is a champion of the people who are charged to breathe life into your work.
  • TRUST in yourself as a writer that even though this production goes as you intended, it will eventually be produced again somewhere down the road, that will be what you wanted! I think this is the hardest one to learn from. But then again, if you’re not able to do any of the above because of time or distance, then it’s kind of out of your hands.
    • Sidenote: I had a play done hundreds of miles away from me and the director and I got together through Skype and even had the first table read done through the interwebs! So, if you have a dope director willing to create a shared experience, like HELLA DOPE COLLABORATORS, time and distance shouldn’t be a factor!
Lenaea High School Theatre Festival Logo

Back to my experience with LENAEA, it’s been pretty awesome! I made the edits so many months ago and in such a short amount of time, I absolutely forgot all of the changes I did make! And happily, the story STILL WORKED! Oh, I forgot, one thing that did help me in prepping for the One-Act version is remembering a question that was asked of me when we had a Q&A panel of students and the OG cast and production team at Bindlestiff Studio: what do you think is the main theme or story of WELGA? I answered, “It’s a son and mom relationship where the son wants one thing and the mother wants another.” So using this as the main thing I want audiences to take from this, along with the lesson that EVERYONE has a voice to make change, it became easy to make the cuts. If the scene, dialogue, or action isn’t used to service this relationship, then it gets cut. I still didn’t take the deletions lightly as each of these adds to their story. I’m pretty proud of writing a story that still can hold up given the amount of pages cut!

One note: finding out a couple of days ago that there’s an award given for Original Script freaked me out! That said, being asked to use this play, is such an honor that I’m realizing that’s the BIGGEST AWARD I could have received. I have a director and a cast that believes in the story they are telling… and it happens to be mine. Well, shit, color me slappy and throw me in a puddle with pigs, this feeling is beyond words.

I’m gonna cry now. kthxbai.

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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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