Nicholas Pilapil

Nicholas Pilapil

Nicholas Pilapil is a Filipino American playwright. His plays include "The Bottoming Process" (world premiere with IAMA Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Ignition Festival of New Plays) and "if all that You take from this is courage, then I've no regrets" (winner of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival). His work has also been developed with Geffen Playhouse, Playwrights...
Nicholas Pilapil is a Filipino American playwright. His plays include "The Bottoming Process" (world premiere with IAMA Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Ignition Festival of New Plays) and "if all that You take from this is courage, then I've no regrets" (winner of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival). His work has also been developed with Geffen Playhouse, Playwrights Foundation, American Stage, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, The Workshop Theater, and The Fountain Theatre, among others. Nicholas is a member of the Asian American theatre collective Artists at Play and is an alum of The Writers’ Room at the Geffen Playhouse, IAMA Theatre Company’s Emerging Playwrights Lab, The Vagrancy Playwrights Group, and artEquity.

Plays

  • God Will Do The Rest
    After her divorce, a forty-something former teen mom returns to her childhood home after being estranged from her family for almost two decades. But with the collision of her return and her glamorously overbearing mother's 70th birthday, their family homestead soon explodes in an uproar of hidden truths and harbored secrets. With Santo Niño prayers, karaoke and chicken adobo, "God Will Do The Rest...
    After her divorce, a forty-something former teen mom returns to her childhood home after being estranged from her family for almost two decades. But with the collision of her return and her glamorously overbearing mother's 70th birthday, their family homestead soon explodes in an uproar of hidden truths and harbored secrets. With Santo Niño prayers, karaoke and chicken adobo, "God Will Do The Rest" exposes the complicated ways Filipino Americans grapple with their love and duty to family.
  • The Bottoming Process
    Two writers meet at WeWork and fall in love—or something like it. One is a famed novelist, and the other is a nobody who's mostly funny on Twitter. One is nearing middle age, and the other is flailing through their twenties. One is White, and the other is definitely Not. As they mate, date, and cohabitate, they'll grapple with issues of race, sex, power, and the model minority myth, all to find out who's really on top.
  • My Dog Died; and Other Concerns
    Nick's dog died—and life decides to bite back. Between battling grief and drowning in mourning, Nick relives growing up brown, overweight and Catholic; coming of age with a killer illness; and disorderly navigating his twenties with bipolar. But with newfound loss in his heart, he finds hidden trauma behind the memories he thought were the truth.
  • if all that You take from this is courage, then I've no regrets
    After a brush with danger, a strong-willed matriarch reminisces with her grandson on all the things their histories have taught them. This 10-minute play explores Filipino American identity, intergenerational disconnect, and weighing your wars to make sure you're not fighting for nothing.
  • Multiple Loads
    Under a moon that the sky won't see for another ten years, Luca and Uri share a fateful night that will test their beliefs in love and destiny. Yet on another unforgettable night, under that same gem in the sky, a decade of lost love and found purpose dares to change the path of their lives forever. "Multiple Loads" is a 10-minute play about the bookends of love and how the stories told in between become folklore.
  • Before and After
    Rose is the most popular girl at North Bay Hills High. She’s all that! But, don’t touch her Asian hair or you’ll live to regret it, because she puts the mean girls to shame. Judy is the new girl at school, and she's clueless—and dreams of being just like everyone else. But her dreams soon become reality when Rose lures her into the glamorous world of being a badass bitch, and in true teen movie fashion,...
    Rose is the most popular girl at North Bay Hills High. She’s all that! But, don’t touch her Asian hair or you’ll live to regret it, because she puts the mean girls to shame. Judy is the new girl at school, and she's clueless—and dreams of being just like everyone else. But her dreams soon become reality when Rose lures her into the glamorous world of being a badass bitch, and in true teen movie fashion, turns her from a basketcase into a princess. But it’s not easy being popular and fabulous at North Bay Hills. And Judy's teen dream soon starts to unravel and she's forced to choose between her life before and after.
  • Young Dumb Broke High School Kids
    Everything sucks for high school kids Bliss, Olivia, and Miles. Bliss is a dreamer but she's knocked up and knocked down, Olivia is a lover with no one to love her back, and Miles is an orphan who would kill to have a family. And together they sling back slushies, barf down chili cheese fries, and try to sort out their lives in the most dangerous ways. They're unloved and fucked up...and it's whatever.
  • Celebrity Trash
    A modern-day adaptation of "Miss Julie," August Strindberg’s iconic play about class and sex, "Celebrity Trash; or another Miss Julie play" adds explorations of race, white male privilege, and the machine of celebrity pop culture to the mix. After a sex tape scandal, Harlow, an 'It Girl' famous for her fame, tries to rehab her image, but when her father throws a lavish party in...
    A modern-day adaptation of "Miss Julie," August Strindberg’s iconic play about class and sex, "Celebrity Trash; or another Miss Julie play" adds explorations of race, white male privilege, and the machine of celebrity pop culture to the mix. After a sex tape scandal, Harlow, an 'It Girl' famous for her fame, tries to rehab her image, but when her father throws a lavish party in their mansion, she's tempted again by Hollywood's excess—and by one her father’s social-climbing employees. What follows is a dangerous game of seduction as the two battle each other in a struggle for power and an escape from their trapped existences.