PLAYWRITING COMPETITION Prompt PLAYWRITING PROMPT

BACKGROUND It was a typical, hot Philadelphia August when the Constitutional Convention ended. Most of the delegates – our Founding Fathers – were still in Philadelphia, having just hammered out the document that has supplied the basic principles of governance for our nation for over 200 years.

The details of the Constitution were a well-protected secret until its publication some time later, and would have been unknown to many people of the time. Informed citizens were anxious to know what kind of government the delegates would recommend. In living rooms, churches, and places of business in the days and weeks before the Constitution was published, citizens had many questions: What kind of government is best for our recently liberated colonies? How will the people be represented in the new government and what will their role be? How will the citizenry of this new nation protect its newly won freedoms?

Mrs. Elizabeth Willing Powel, the wife of the mayor of Philadelphia and close friend of George and Martha Washington, was an educated, well-spoken and well-read woman of her time. She was not accustomed to keeping her opinions to herself. She would have listened to and participated in these discussions and debates that were occurring all over the city of Philadelphia in the heady days of the Constitutional Convention. On the day the Convention concluded, Mrs. Powel saw Benjamin Franklin, the most prominent member of the Pennsylvania delegation, leaving the hall where the delegates had just finished their work. She stopped him and asked, “Dr. Franklin, what have you given us?” Franklin is said to have replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

ASSIGNMENT Your job, as a playwright, is to imagine how Mrs. Powel might have reacted to Dr. Franklin’s advice that “you,” the citizen, is ultimately responsible for upholding the principles of the new government. What meaning would she have taken from his comment and how would this have influenced her conversations about the new government with merchants on her way home, or with her household servants, or with her friends, or with her family around the dinner table that evening. Dramatize how the people in Mrs. Powel’s world would imagine and express their role in the new nation based on Dr. Franklin’s advice. What would they have believed “keeping the republic” might entail? How would their faith, beliefs, and experiences from the Revolutionary War have influenced their view of a citizen’s role in the new government? What differences do you think they might have had about the idea of a republic?

Remember: Drama is based on conflict. Plays are a competition of ideas and actions between characters. What kinds of disagreements might have been played out around Mrs. Powel’s dinner table the night Franklin spoke those challenging words to her? Use your imagination combined with historical research to support your ideas and the world you create.

PLAYWRITING CONTEST PROMPT 2 Here are some characters that Mrs. Powel might have encountered:

• Family: Her Husband, Samuel Powel, and her Children.

• Neighbors and townspeople: Her household servants and the servants of her neighbors, merchants, and tradesmen.

• Visitors to the city: Ship captains and crews from foreign countries including France and England, with whom we had re-established trade after the Revolutionary War; Native Americans living in and near the city.

• At dinner that night, Mrs. Powel’s guests might have included a member of any delegation to the Constitutional Convention or even a visiting British or French businessman — Powel’s husband being a prominent businessman himself and a member of the Philosophical Society.

PLAYWRITING CONTEST PROMPT 3