Chapter One

Introduction
Writing is easy, thinking isn't. Only dogged determination drives most authors through the first
hour and the first paragraphs of each day. Ervine defines playwrighting the hardest and most
discouraging form of writing. It takes time to write a story, catch a sensible idea, imagine a world, a
being, and a circumstance. None of those come in an instant or in a short moment. It requires
experience, memory, and research. Playwrighting is a process of creating an artistic imitation of life.
On August 2015, when I finally made it to the Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts, with the
encouragements of my fellow artists, I decided to go through this process and finally do it seriously.
Fortunately, Dr. Anton Juan, a professor, director, and playwright offered a playwrighting course which
I already have taken under Floy Quintos, a muliti-Palanca awardee and playwright of most of Dulaang
UP's plays. Not satisfied with what I learned, I decided to take it again. And here, I'm in the process of
writing the play titled, This Play, a fictional one-act play about two artists, Dom the director, and AJ
the playwright, creating an innovative way of creating a play.
A play demands clarity unmatched in any other kind of writing. A play is uniquely objective
because the playwright must convey everything through the dialogue of living characters, and has no
opportunity for personal comment and description outside of printed stage directions. Acted on the
stage, the play has complete objectivity, and because of that, every line, every speech, every scene must
be crystal clear if it is ever to be understood. As you read a novel, you can stop to think about a passage
or reread it. But in the theater, words race by, and if you didn't quite understand a speech or a scene,
you have no time to think about it, for the next scene is already demanding your complete attention.
This creative study will increase my professional growth as an artist, not only in the field of
playwrighting, but also in developing deeper understanding in acting and directing. I believe that to be
a successful playwright, one must be exposed in a theater production because playwrighting is truly not
just about writing a play, but witnessing it as well. This research challenges me to evaluate my ability
to write a play that communicates and gives me opportunity to collaborate with different artists,
explore, and create a craft. I will share everything I learned in the process to my peers and fellow
artists. This will also prepare me in writing my future thesis which will later on contribute to the few

studies about playwrighting in the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts.
Statement of the Problem
It is extremely challenging as a student to study about writing a one-act play that will tackle a
socially relevant issue. First, there is the task of writing a play considering the format, grammar, and
language. Then the process of making a character, a storyline, stage directions and dialogue. Aside
from these, what do I want to say to the world? It is something that deals with my personal experience
that can connect to the audience. Playwrighting is a kind of revolutionary writing. In this study, I, the
researcher and playwright will face the following:
a.) How will I write a one-act play that will tackle a socially relevant issue?
b.) How will I narrate the process I went through in writing a one-act play?
c.) How will the one-act play that I wrote be produced under Dulaang Laboratoryo?
Objectives
The objectives of this creative study are as follows:
a.) To write a one-act play that will tackle a socially relevant issue;
b.) To narrate the process I went through in writing a one-act play;
c.) To write a one-act play that can possibly be produced by Dulaang Laboratoryo;
d.) and to mount a production under Dulaang Laboratoryo using the one-act play that I wrote.
Scope and Limitations
This creative study will discuss specific problems that the researcher-playwright faced in the
process of making and mounting a one-act play that will tackle a socially relevant issue, and her
solution and conclusions after learning the lessons she must learn. The researcher will narrate what she
learned in every situation she encountered by indicating specific, relevant experiences she went through
in doing this study and how she overcomes the problems. This study will only focus on the events
during the creative process (August-December 2015). This study was conducted during First Semester
Academic year 2015-2016 in the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

Significance of the Study

Every playwright came from knowing nothing about playwrighting. We learn by instinct, by
experience, by the influence of people, and performances we've seen live or on television. We all began
as beginners. For me, this is my beginning.
I believe this study will be useful for those who will also begin, for those who don't know much,
for the explorers, for those wondering or asking how, why, and when to start, for those who are eager to
discover the art of writing a play, and for those who want to do way better than they have done before.
This study also aims to encourage readers to step out, especially those who stay in their comfort zones,
with the testimonies that I, the researcher will tell about my experiences in writing and mounting This
Play.