Theatre & Dance ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 4-15-2018

Abstract

Hola. Me llamo Diego Miguel Gomez. I am a Chicano from Santa Fe, New Mexico, a screenwriter, an athlete, and now a playwright. Through this dissertation, I guide you through my personal and artistic journey leading up to this point. In the abstract, I reflect the process of production for my thesis play, Planeta Solitario, along with my aspirations beyond the Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing program at the University of New Mexico. Throughout this essay I switch languages and employ slang from different cultures and sub-cultures because I don’t speak in one language or tongue, I speak in many. I use New Mexican Spanglish along with sports and travel terminology. Where it is crucial, I use parenthesis to explain the meaning. Thank you for humoring me.

I have realized many aspects and interests of my life revolve around one thing, story. I understand story to be a three-act structure and view much of my life through this lens. I use Syd Field’s three-act structure model for screenwriting that he built off of Aristotle’s Poetics, along with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey from his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. My journey through this program has been a transition from writing for the screen to learning technique and writing for the stage. It has also provided a reconnection from the impersonal to the personal and learning how to dramatize autobiography which led to my two best plays to date: Silent Youth and Planeta Solitario. Here is how my life, my story, my writing process can be broken down into three acts.

Degree Name

Dramatic Writing

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Theatre & Dance

First Committee Member (Chair)

Gregory S. Moss

Second Committee Member

Dominika Laster

Third Committee Member

Matthew McDuffie

Fourth Committee Member

Rebecca M. Sánchez

Keywords

Planeta, language, drama, memory, autobiography, travel

Document Type

Dissertation

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