Creating a play based on forbidden love is something that any school with an acting class can come up with, but to turn that “Romeo and Juliet” formula and add time travel, elements of family, settings based on historical facts, modern life references, traditional Filipino dances, all tied together into a cultural learning experience is something unique to Skyline College’s English 104 AK, the Applied English Skills for Cultural Production class. “Lovewrecked: Diary of a Manilaman,” is a play based on the forbidden love theme and was performed on Thursday May 1 and Saturday May 3 in Skyline College’s main theater for Skyline’s fourth annual Pilipino Cultural Night (PCN). Starring an all-Skyline student cast, “Lovewrecked” tells the story of a 21-year-old college student named Marc Florendo (played by Briane Nuval) who is having relationship problems. Marc’s girlfriend (played by Crystle Presa) gets angry with him for not working on a family tree project due in a few days, and in an effort to save his relationship from crumbling Marc begins to do research for the project. After finding an unfinished diary belonging to a great ancestor Marc falls asleep and wakes up in his great ancestor’s time period. Watching his lower class ancestor’s quest to fight for the one he loves, a upper class woman, inspires Marc to fight hard for his relationship.In parts of the play, dance routines are performed where appropriate to the story, dances including a hip hop performance choreographed as well as Filipino traditional dances.”Luckily this year we started a Filipino dance class with Victoria Hafalia and Bonfacio Valera and that was the first time we had a traditional dance class here,” said Kababayan Program coordinator Liza Erpelo. “They took care of all the traditional Filipino dances and then the students choreographed their own hip hop dance.”Not only were the dances choreographed by the students of ENGL 104, but the props, costumes, and scripts were done by the students as well. “They do all their own costumes and props,” said Erpelo. “All that’s them. They take care of their own advertising and the flyers; everything is done by the students.”Executive Director Rommel Conclara said, “Some of the clothes that the men wore were clothing they had at home.”This year’s performance ran two nights, instead of previous years which only ran on a Saturday.Head writer Lloyd Bautista said, “I was actually nervous on Thursday, but after Act 1 Scene 1 when I heard the cheers and everything it was a huge relief off my chest.””The best way to describe Saturday is bittersweet,” said Erpelo. “We talked about that when we circled up afterwards because for a good number of folks this would be their last PCN here at Skyline.”Ticket sales for Thursday came up to 317, which according to Erpelo was unexpected. Saturday’s ticket sales have not been tallied yet, but Erpelo says she feels like it was sold out as the two prior years Saturday performances were sold out.The script for “Lovewrecked” came up during the PCN’s CORE retreat, a meeting for those people like the executive director and executive producer who make up the “core” of the PCN group.”The pitch was actually about Filipino pirates and it was Nate Nevado who actually told us that there was Filipinos that lived in Louisiana near 1763,” said Bautista. “So what I did when I got home from the retreat was that I took that idea and incorporated it in with the present. To finalize the script it took the entire fall semester.”The class that produces PCN is split into two parts: the fall semester writes the script while the spring semester does the acting.”In the fall what we focus on is writing the scripts for the play, put together ideas, learn how to write dialog, put together the scenes and acts, and by the end of the semester we have a completed script,” said Erpelo. “In the spring it’s the production so basically we audition actors for the parts, the students audition dancers and they start putting the show together. Some students will only want to do the writing part others want to do just the acting so they have a choice in what they want to do.”For those that are involved, ENGL 104 is more than a class as they create a bond with each other and learn about their culture. “PCN is putting a show together, that’s the focus of the class, but on the way you are learning about culture,” said Conclara. “What we try to do at Skyline College for our PCN is an extension of what PCN is meant to be. It’s not just to showcase the Filipino culture, it’s to educate.”

Erpelo expects the DVD for “Lovewrecked: Diary of a Manilaman” to be out in the next couple weeks, and plans to have a DVD release party before the year ends.