Former Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) chairperson, actress, beauty pageant winner (Mutya ng Pilipinas Tourism) and chef Liza Diño just added “playwright” to her credentials after the first play that she wrote, “Choosing,” successfully debuted Saturday afternoon.

Diño couldn’t be any prouder that the play was well-received by the star-studded audience, who trooped to the Power Mac Center Spotlight, Blackbox Theater in Circuit Makati. 

“This is very unconventional,” Diño told the audience at curtain call. “This is all of our 11 years of being together. Hopefully, you can share this positive experience.”

At the helm of “Choosing” was veteran director Anton Juan, a senior professor at the University of Notre Dame whose last work, “Amon Banwa sa Lawud (Our Island of the Mangrove Moons),” was awarded last year.

“Sir Anton gave us exercises before we started rehearsing,” Diño told ABS-CBN after the matinee performance. “We had the bidet and the Playboy magazine.

“His instruction was, ‘Right now, write a monologue about a forgotten object. Or tell us about parallel love because we both had our respective relationships’.”

 All the stories in “Choosing” were based on true-to-life accounts, not just about Diño and partner Ice Seguerra. “The audience doesn’t know where the reality starts and the fiction ends.”

Diño finished the script of “Choosing,” an intense two-hander with her and Seguerra, in only three days. Diño was apparently more pressured with the June booking at Spotlight Blackbox Theater that was why she submitted the script right away.

When she returned from Cannes, France last May, Diño worked on the script immediately. Writing the script became easy for her since it became “very organic” for her.

“Ice and I have been processing this for several months now,” Diño said. “I made sure to get his inputs that’s why we were able to personalize the script. Everything is based on true stories.

“I wrote down my questions to Ice then merely passed on the laptop to him for his answers. We were exchanging ideas. Sometimes, nagagalit kami sa isa’t-isa because nai-inis ako sa reaction niya or the things he said. You know what you want to share was merely on your mind.”

Admittedly, “Choosing” became an easy subject for Diño’s playwriting debut. “I feel a lot of people really don’t understand the complexities and intricacies of a complicated relationship that they tend to brand or judge immediately,” Diño explained.

“Once you extract the issues and conflicts, you realize you have similar experiences of conflicts, not just exactly the same. You and your partner want to do something but both of you have reservations and fears.”

The most challenging for Diño as a playwright was to confront the vulnerability. “So the story will be more authentic,” she said. “We are bringing out the authenticity of the play and showing the vulnerability of the characters, showing the various truths about themselves. That’s the only way the play would be effective and resonate with the audience.”

They fictionalized a number of scenes, some of which were shared to them by people close to them. Some may have happened to a friend that was shared to them.

“We may simply extracted the story, fictionalized it and created a whole monologue out of the stories we had. We had a one month preparation before “Choosing” debuted Saturday.  

“You’d think it was just about that situation, but it was something deeper than that. It has its own hidden story. To extract that out from your partner and actually go through the difficult discussion, that was the play. It’s putting the stories out there.”

Seguerra even rendered an original song “Hypothetical Love,” that he penned a week before “Choosing” debuted onstage.

Celebrities who were in the audience yesterday were director Jeffrey Jeturian, actress Ruby Ruiz, theater couple Isay Alvarez and Robert Seña, Ricky Davao and girlfriend Maica Darocca, songwriter Jonathan Manalo, and singer Jeffrey Hidalgo.

“Choosing” goes onstage with more performances on June 30 with 3 and 8 p.m. shows, July 6, with 3 and 8 p.m. performances, July 7 at 2 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. schedule.