The January People’s Choice Award goes to…

Posted by on January 23, 2026

The people have spoken… The January People’s Choice Award goes to Amy Ellenberger, for her play, SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD I GO, presented as a staged reading at Monday Night PlayGround-LA on January 12th live at Broadwater Second Stage and simulcast via Vimeo Livestream. Congratulations, Amy!

Courtesy of Amy, we’re pleased to share the first two pages from the award-winning script. Enjoy!

SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD I GO
by Amy Ellenberger

MARCUS: late 30s, male, teacher, African-American
CASSIE: late 30s, female, writer, Asian-American
MARIA: any age, female, Latina or white, horse wrangler, trail guide

SETTING: Griffith Park, Los Angeles

Lights up. Sunset. Los Angeles. MARCUS and CASSIE are on a guided horseback riding tour in Griffith Park with their wrangler and guide MARIA. Horses can be represented with hobby horses.

MARIA
We are now ascending to Mount Hollywood! The third tallest peak in Griffith Park. If you look to your right you can see the Hollywood Sign and to your left the Griffith Observatory. You guys are super lucky today. You’ve come on a very special night. (She winks twice in an exaggerated way at MARCUS.) The air is incredibly clear, no nasty smog in sight so you can see all the way to the ocean!

MARCUS
Oh wow! Amazing! Look at that! Hey, hon, isn’t beautiful?

CASSIE
Sure.

MARIA
Griffith Park is the largest city park in the country. Humans and horses alike get to share its 52 miles of trails. There’s no other metropolitan area in the country where you can ride a horse in the middle of the city!

MARCUS
Cool. Isn’t that cool Cassie?

CASSIE
Yeah.

MARIA
Griffith Park was originally inhabited by the Tongva Indians until the Spanish colonized it in the 1700s. Then, the U.S. acquired the land during the Spanish-American War in 1848. Enter Colonel Griffith! Well, he wasn’t actually a Colonel. I don’t think he served a day in his life, but he just decided one day to call himself a Colonel.

MARCUS
No kidding.

CASSIE
Seems like rich white dudes can get away with anything hunh? (MARCUS shoots a look at CASSIE) What?

MARIA
Inspired by the many parks they saw on their honeymoon in Europe, Colonel Griffith and his wife Christina decided to donate almost 4,000 acres of land that became Griffith Park today. They believed “Every great city needs a great city park.”

MARCUS’s horse starts to veer off the trail to the edge of the cliff to eat grass which he does nothing to stop.

MARCUS
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! What is it doing?!

MARIA
Pull up on the reins! Pull Up!

MARCUS
Whoa, it’s really steep down there.

MARIA
Pull up and kick!

MARCUS
I don’t want to hurt him.

MARIA
He’s over a thousand pounds you’re not going to hurt him.

(to be continued)

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Stay tuned for information about the next installment PlayGround-LA! For more info, click here