Leslie Morales 

Composition for Creative Expression 

Professor Matias 

Written Personal Narrative

“Chasing the Moon, Finding Confidence”

Interloper. Inter. Loper. Enter? No, interloper. What is an interloper? Is it something that loops inside of something else? I didn’t know what an interloper was but what I did know is that I had to include it in a microplay that was a page long for my theater class. 

My theater teacher always gave us free range on our writing assignments aside from a very strict one page requirement. This assignment was simple; write a one page microplay that includes an interloper. An interloper was described to us as something that interrupts. It could be a cat wandering on stage in the middle of a ceremony, or a little kid asking for your help while you are sitting watching tv. 

I didn’t know what I wanted to write about, but with the prompt at hand I sat and began brainstorming. There were times where that one page felt daunting, then were times that one page felt confining and claustrophobic. When I thought of plays, I thought about the amazing and classing works of literature, from the Greek tragedies to Shakespeare. This was one of my first experiences with playwriting and just the thought of writing a play seemed daunting in itself, especially with such comparisons in mind, so I was nervous and didn’t even know where to start. I sat and thought about what felt like a million and one different interlopers and how I could craft them into a play. 

Then it hit me. An interloper we see everyday is at sunrise and sunset. When the moon is high in the sky and the sun comes and interrupts the night with its bright rays of light, letting the world know it’s time to start it’s day. I had decided that my interloper was going to be the sun breaking in the day as the moon falls slowly. 

As I started writing I paused as I realized just how quickly I wrote a page worth of content and began to panic because I hadn’t gotten to fit in as much as I wanted to. I knew I was only writing a page worth of content, but I had an entire world created in my mind. I remembered when giving the prompt my teacher reminded us that one word can have a world of other meanings. I restarted and went to start researching to have a deeper layer of meaning than what is right on the paper. 

I sat with my interloper and wrote it over and over until I could think of a story line. Although a bit sad, I had eventually created a scene in which two sisters would be sitting on the roof of their house in escape of their arguing parents as they watched the moon. With police sirens slowly creeping up on the house and red and blue lights flooding their vision, the younger one would set off into the forest as they attempted to get to the moon before the sun finished rising. Although to many the sun represents a new day, the younger one innocently chases the moon as an attempt to regain her parents’ love for each other. She runs blindly attempting to grab honey from the moon after her older sister laments over the fact she has never seen her parents love each other and only heard stories of such a thing happening on their honeymoon only to be cut off by the sun completely taking its place high in the sky.

Now that I had all of these small nuances planned out. I actually started to write the scene, not just brainstorm. It was a lot of cutting down to fit and even messing with the formatting to fit everything in but within half an hour, I had it finished. “Chasing the Moon” by Leslie Morales was created. I was so proud of it. In my theatre class I struggled a lot with taking confidence in my work and feeling like I deserved to be there and take up space. But with this scene, it was the first time I had a piece of work I couldn’t wait to share. 

I felt like it was my first piece of work that was like a real play and a step towards me advancing as a playwright because I was no longer writing material that revealed its meaning simply put on the page and in the words. It was subject to analysis and not a piece of work that made everyone just simply laugh. It might not be the best or most critical piece of work, but it gave me so much confidence and made me believe that one day I could write a scene or play that can be. 

I left that moment early my junior year there but always reminded myself of it whenever I felt stuck when creating a scene. Then throughout covid, I saw given the opportunity to produce it. It was then when I watched the scene play through that I saw the audience to the playwright aspect of creating. I felt like I had my broadway moment in a way. It reminded me of when I went to watch one of my favorites musicals, On Your Feet!, and I sat and cried when Gloria got into her accident and laughed when I heard her grandmother. I watched as people connected with the characters, as they giggled at Selene’s innocence and held their breath when they saw their parents on stage arguing. Watching their reaction and interaction with it gave me motivation to write more, and showed me it doesn’t matter how much experience you do or don’t have because everyone is capable of creating something great. “Chasing the Moon” has instilled this and so many other lessons in me that I will never forget and am eternally grateful for.