Coming Full Circle

:o/ honestly, i was going to say that i was disappointed to know that my script that i wrote 11 years ago, and later resurrected this year by my lil sister, xLe, won't be produced. BUT it's for a good reason. a couple of postings ago, i wrote that i'm still trying to find myself as an artist, and thanks to her and a book that i've just finished called, "Naked Playwriting". Along with being creative and experimental, part of being an artist is to be able to not only stick by your creation, but to also fight for it.

"The art of playwriting lets us see through someone else's point of view. It does not set out to reaffirm or entertain, but to eliminate the sameness that breeds ignorance and to enrich our experience of life." - William Missouri Downs and Robin U. Russin, "Naked Playwriting: The Art, the Craft, and the Life Laid Bare"

One of the reasons i wanted to get into writing for the stage was to seek acceptance. The first thing i ever wrote was a PCN script for Samahang Pilipino in 1995. i was 21 or 22 at the time. i wrote the script in a couple of days in a mad fury. The characters came to me in a dream and started speaking thru me. i didn't realize at the time that this was a blessing from God to allow me to take these people in my dreams and put them on stage. Through the rehearsal stage, this dream got altered because of what the rest of the cast and production needs. I wouldn't go so far as to say that i was spineless for allowing myself to change my vision for this acceptance because something came out of that experience... i knew that was something i wanted to do for the rest of my life. if sacrificing a part of this inkling of what i needed to find for myself, then i can say that this was worth it.

the funny thing is that, as i said earlier, one of the reasons why i did that play was for acceptance and to make friends. sadly to say, there is only one person that i truly became friends with from that PCN cast. He is BJ Alisago. Right after that experience, we joined Sinag-tala and the rest is history. Also goes to show, that I didn't find my true friends until after college, and i am SO BLESSED that this happened this way. don't get me wrong, i am sad that i didn't keep the friends that i had in college, but unfortunately, when i hung around these people, i always felt that i wasn't free to be myself, despite the fact that i didn't know who i was until i joined ST. my ST family has been by my side for over 11 years now. even through my time away, i came back and they accepted me back like i never left. that's what family means. a lot of things has happened over the past couple of years to cause this family to break apart, and i really miss some of the ones whom have put a lot of their lives into the show, but the heart is still entact, and a lot of us are still beating. that's all we can do.

so in a way, i felt like i have come FULL CIRCLE with this pcn latest episode. it's where i started this journey as a playwright (i think i became an artist with my first written song at 15) but instead of looking at it as closing this loop without a production, i've started another loop as an artist who has, with the help of a strong pinay, become a stronger person. on a side note, i can't wait to get our certificate in the mail.