The theme for this month’s Monday Night Playground was Whodunnit. Oh boy!
Before going into the practical notes below, the process went something like this:
- Learn what is a Whodunnit and what are the elements of it:
- What’s the crime?
- How that crime was committed?
- Who was the victim?
- Who are the suspects?
- Why did they want the victim killed (if the crime was a murder)?
- How was it solved?
- Find inspiration:
- The mystery novel, ADOBO & ARSENIC, by Mia Manansala (just finished listening to the audiobook)
- Needed it to have something Filx-Am in it
- Wanted to have a diverse cast of characters
- I was in a silly mood, so that’s where the absurdity came… I just wanted to have fun
After writing out the notes below based on the above questions, I just wrote! I think I wanted to write an outline first, per usual, but I was running out of time. So the plot was derived from just the notes.
Here are my initial notes while writing the play. Imagine the following as being something scrawled into a notebook w/ current notes being placed in (parentheses):
(I think I started this play with trying to come up with a logline as pitch to myself, as follows…)
A Short Whodunit Play about how the wanna-be detective, Maylene Zamora, investigates Chef Lola Garcia was framed for the murder of food critic, ex-bf, and food contest judge, Chance Bartholomew, during the Fog City International Food Competition.
Idea:
- Vlogger
- Detective
- Suspect #1
- Suspect #2
- Suspect #3
The Vlogger is the narrator and crime solver
The Murderer is the Detective
The Victim is a Judge (and food critic) of the best Lumpia Food Competition
There are THREE Suspects
- The Granny – nice and innocent but has never won despite entering the contest 39 years in a row
- The Trained Chef – had his business ruined by the judge who gave him a bad review
- The Ex – formally the life partner of the Judge who thought they could woo the judge back with their food
The Vlogger is a filmmaker who has turned to being a YouTuber to fund her next film.
The Detective frames the Ex because he is in love with her and knew that she was still in love with the Judge. So if he couldn’t have her, then no one can! He’s been in love with her since high school. The Judge was the school jock and bully. The Detective was a nerd and when the judge and the ex broke up, he tried to get with her.
The only thing that Granny wanted was to win Fog City’s annual food competition which she’s lost for 24 straight years!
THE SYNOPSIS
After Chance Bartholomew, the despised food critic and Food Judge of Fog City’s 50th Annual International Food Competition, mysteriously dies after eating one of 3 different lumpias, the small Bay Area Town’s detective, Vincent Premsirat, and a Vloggler/Influencer, Monica Pascual, piece together the clues of the short whodunnit, CLICK, LIKE, AND MURDER: THE CASE OF THE KILLER LUMPIA.
THE VICTIM
Chance Bartholomew is the 49 year old the Fog City Gazette’s Restaurant Critic and has been the sole judge of the International Food Competition for the last 25 years. Prior to becoming the small city’s food writer, he worked as a food test taster for the COSTCO company. But in an effort to be a respected food critic like his idols, Adam Richman and Andrew Zimmern he’s always wanted to be
THE MURDER
Chance was killed from an allergic reaction to Latex. The only person who knew this was the detective who saved him when they were kids at a birthday party when Chance got hives at Chuck E. Cheese.
Chance was killed after he stopped breathing which seems like he had an allergic reaction to one of the food items. This would seem odd for a food critic since he would be deadly for a person who needs to try a lot of different food to work.
THE MURDERER
Vincent Premsirat poisoned Chance after handling some lumpia with his latex gloves.
SUSPECTS
- Nekesa Moonbeam, The Silver-Haired Homecook – peaceloving, herbal healing enthusiast, and proud chef who holds a personal grudge against Chance as he has judged her the loser of 24 straight international food competitions.
- Heinrich Van DeLaVega, The Classically Trained Chef – had his business ruined by the judge who gave him a bad review.
- Ilima-Lei Dandridge, The Ex – formally the life partner of the Judge who thought they could woo the judge back with her food
Open with a scream in blackout!
(After I came up with all of the above, more of a sketch / brainstorm than anything else, I sat in my bed with laptop on lap and just wrote. We had 4 days to write this, so I had 3 days of the story above in my head and took me about 3 hours to dump in out. And then an hour to edit and quickly send out! It was so cray, but glad it worked out.)