Was really excited to FINALLY share my short play called TEARDROPPED with the Foothill College Theatre Arts Productions’ program called Culture Clatter. It was presented under Stories from Filipino America.
In true Conrad fashion, I wrote this to be totally something different than I’ve written before. I don’t know what compels me to keep doing this to myself. Isn’t there like a rule saying, “to master something, you have to perfect that thing by doing it over and over again.” Not really sure if that is the saying, but hope you get the idea. But that’s kinda true to who I am as a person. I try to take different routes home, I like to take lefts when I usually go right, or pick up random books based on the title or cover art.
In the case of TEARDROPPED, in my normal route of writing a focused plot plays aka setting a goal/objective for the main protagonist, I opted to focus on the character–the why a character is asking for what that person wants. I didn’t have a strong obstacle per sé because of this focus. But because plot is engrained in me (a prisoner asks a high-school friend to take his last picture before he is executed), I wanted to focus on the why rather all the reasons against it, which I kinda had to put my natural instincts to do out of dramaturgy sake. Cuz… conflict!
At any rate, since this is a short piece performed on Zoom, and I consider most of my short pieces as exercises for longer work, I’m honored that our director, Jeffrey Lo, and actors, Raisa Donato and Allan Silva, brought this piece to life!
If you’re interested in reading the script, you can do so here.