Screenwriter Francesca Flores gets the chance to see her three-years work come to life
Aspiring playwrights can compete to showcase their stories, if selected by screenwriting professor Neil Weiss, during the Emerging American Voices project in the Citrus College Little Theatre.
Francesca Flores took advantage of the opportunity to introduce her coming-of-age story that follows a girl searching for her own place in the world. “Cadence” is about Rita, a family-oriented Latina, as she struggles to balance her life while supporting her family at the same time.
Attempting to follow her dreams of becoming a journalist, she feels the pressure mounting as she tries to find a major story and deals with her mom constantly berating her about being more helpful.
Rita makes matters worse, as is often the case when young people face hard times, when she damages an expensive bike and is on the hook for the repairs.
Flores, 24, screen writing major, worked on “Cadence” on and off for three years. When Weiss chose her play to be performed in the EMV production, she was thrilled.
“It’s exciting. I mean, after working on this for about three years, it was great to have it be picked,” Flores said.
Emerging American Voices screenwriter Francesca Flores. Use the Aurasma app (Free on Google Play / iTunes) and follos: LogosMagazine to unlock a bonus video by scanning this photo. Photo by: Evan Solano / Logos
Using her own life as launching point, Flores presents several issues that most students can relate to. Rita must face the struggles of making future college plans, maintaining a job and becoming an independent adult.
“I don’t think it’s really about me, but it is influenced by me and my friends,” she said.
To resonate with her audience, she incorporates music and marijuana throughout the play. Flores says these are ways people deal with daily struggles. Flores uses these coping mechanisms to allow the audience to see Rita’s side.
“Those are usually conversations you have with your friends, and often times, if you do smoke weed, you have those conversations while you’re smoking,” Flores said. “It’s something that’s a little more common among our generation.”
Rita finds yet another approach to deal with her struggles at the bicycle shop known as Red Stone Cycles.
There, Rita gets to know Cherrie, the owner of the damaged bicycle, and gets into the small community of fixed gear cycling.
“That’s one reason Rita is drawn to Cherrie and her friends,” Flores said. “She’s trying to get a steady rhythm in her life, a nice cadence.”
While only the first act was performed during the EMV production, Flores has already written the second act and will finish the finale during Spring 2017. So what’s in store for Rita? Flores said there might be some fixed gear cycling races, but “Cadence” is still in progress, so we all just have to wait and see.
