(Photo from WELGA, Cosumnes Oaks High School Production Nov. 2019)
Below is the list of the many variations of WELGA:
- WELGA (The Full-Length Filipino American Play) – 102 Pages
- WELGA (The One-Act Play) – 38 Pages
- RELEVANT HISTORY (A Scene Written for Zoom, Adapted from WELGA) – 10 Pages
The above plays are FREE to read for personal use 🙂 However, if you’d like to use these scripts for public presentation or production, please contact me at conradap@gmail.com.
Synopsis
WELGA is a Filipino American coming-of-age story of a high school teen, Johnny Montalban, whose dreams of becoming a famous musician is met with the dream of his mother’s for him to get his diploma first. Set in San Francisco’s SoMA Neighborhood, the play not only deals with this clash of dreams, but also with today’s educational system, community issues, and labor rights while being inspired by the Filipino agricultural workers who led the 1965 Delano Grape Strike.
Happy Filipino American History Month 2023! It’s wondrous how the Universe works. Call it Kismet or Synchronicity, but it’s nice how in the most “random” of times where fate occurs based on a series of events:
- I watched Workshop 2 from Larry The Musical and was inspired to upload a clip of the song I wrote, Follow the Fields, for my play WELGA which was inspired by the work Manong Larry Itliong and many others defending Agricultural Workers Lives.
- Once the clip was viewed on my IG Feed, a fellow playwright and educator DMs me if I could share the play’s script with her to share with her Middle School students.
- I see another IG post from the director of the High School production of WELGA speaking and giving a lesson to students at CSU, Sacramento in preparation for the Pilipino Cultural Night (PCN). I left a comment saying something that’s where I wrote my first play, Ang Palengke (aka by the original title, Hanggat Kaya Kong Pangarap) in 1995.
- The current PCN Coordinator at CSUS reaches out to me with an opportunity to speak at one of their meetings.
I’m so grateful for ALL the opportunities this play has given me. And it’s all really my love and respect for everyone who immigrated from the Philippines to make America a home for all of us. Just lucky I get to tell one of the stories to celebrate them!