Play Proposal

CATALYST: Would you marry the love of your life if it meant you would lose your family? Would you abandon this love in order to please your family? This is loosely based on the experiences of people close to me.

CONCEPT: A young Pakistani man, Asif, must choose whether or not to take part in an arranged marriage.

CONFLICT: Asif has an American girlfriend who he loves and wants to marry.

CHARACTER SKETCHES: Asif is a twenty-five year law student who is being pressured into an arranged marriage by his parents. Other characters include Michelle, Asif's girlfriend and Sonia, the girl who his parents want him to marry.

PHILOSOPHICAL WORLD: The sacrifice of true love.

PHYSICAL WORLD: Asif's choice of who to marry.

POINT OF ATTACK: Asif tells his parents that he wants to marry Michelle.

STORY SYNOPSIS: Asif is a young man with a bright future. He does not want to participate in an arranged marriage but does not have the will to tell his parents. Instead he wants to marry his long time girlfriend, Michelle, who his parents do not know about. Asif knows that his parents will be heartbroken and probably irate that he wants to marry an American.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: Asif has an internal debate with himself about whether to tell his parents that he does not want an arranged marriage. He finally tells his parents and they react as he expected. After much thought and soul-searching, He ultimately decides to follow his parents' wishes and marry Sonia.

PLOT OUTLINE: The play is divided into three parts. Part I concerns Asif's thought-process regarding his decision. In Part II, Asif tells his parents about his girlfriend Michelle. Finally, in Part III, Asif makes his final decision to participate in the arranged marriage.

Hello Out There

This play centers around a man, Photo-Finish, who is spending his days in a prison cell on a rape charge. This young man has a clear objective: freedom. The only way for him to achieve this goal is to enlist the aid of a second party. Thus, Photo-Finish tries his best to find someone to help him escape the prison. The young man finds a girl named Emily and attempts to use her to gain his freedom. Emily's intentions are not very clear in the beginning of the play but it soon becomes apparent that she is a prostitute.

I enjoyed this play the first time I read it. However, it takes a second read to appreciate all of its aspects. The author was very wise in his use of language and after reading the play a second time, I was surprised how I initially missed many of the hidden meanings behind his words. For example, the author never actually states that Emily is a prostitute; this is something that can be inferred by the reader. Also, the author never mentions the ethnic background of Photo-Finish, but the reader can guess that he is not a white man.

I believe that a lot can be learned from this play. For example, it is important to realize the significance of not only what the author says, but also of what the author does not say i.e. the hidden meaning behind the author's words. I also learned that it is not necessary for a playwright to give the reader clear details on every aspect of the play's characters; ambiguity allows the reader to fill in these details.

Play Proposal

Catalyst: What's up with all these 80 year old billionaires with good looking women?

Concept: I want to write a satirical comedy about these strange relationships, that pays homage to Shakepeares' "A Mid-summer Night's Dream"

Conflict: A older man tries to make a move on a young girl, and the same with an older women on a younger guy.

Character Sketches: An older man who hasn't had much luck with women and is responding to an ad for a relationship. An older women who is recently divorced and used a dating website. A young girl who was forced to go on a date by her concerned mom with her mom's co-worker's son. A young guy who has been set up on a blind date by his friends.

Philosophical World: "Like attracts like" examining gender bias in relationships.

Physical World: Point of climax in date scene when all is revealed about the truth.

Point of Attack: When the characters reveal how they came on the date.

Story Synopsis: These characters are all having trouble with dating and so they are all set up in some sort of way and they are all looking for different things in relationships which come out during the date through their mannerisms. It takes a deeper look into how age does create differences in relationships and sometimes each person belongs best with their own crowd.

Plot: Four different come on a blind date in a restaurant and slowly slowly different comedic events ensure that lead to the a revelation at the climax and a realization by all the characters of a little bit about themselves and what they are looking for a in relationship.

Plot Outline: The whole play takes place in one long extended scene, split into two portions, that will go back and forth between the two mismatched couples. The climax is the revelation portion and then the play concludes with them leaving with their correct and respective blind date partners.

Hello Out There

This play was a very interesting read and there were a few aspects that I would like to highlight from it. The first is that the play incorporates an interesting story element which brings it into a full circle. It begins with Photo Finish saying, "Hello out there," and ends with Emily saying it as well, which I found to be very clever.

Another aspect of the play which I throughly enjoyed was how the playwright chose to not name the characters and refer to them as "Man" and "Girl" etc... Yet although that somewhat takes away from character development, the arbitrary names allows the characters to become more universal, and gives the audience a chance to name them themselves based off how they perceive them.

On a closing note, I researched the play and found out that it was once made into a short film, but I think it has alot of potential to be remade; it also wouldn't be that difficult of a play to produce.