Assess the candidate's ability to apply principles of dramatic structure to adapt a short story into a one-act play: identify the story's inciting incident, rising action, climax, and resolution; justify which scenes, characters, or subplots to compress or omit; demonstrate methods for compressing time and consolidating characters; design stageable conflict, character arcs, pacing, transitions, and dialogue versus narration; and provide a concise adaptation outline (3–8 scenes/segments) with clear rationale linking each choice to dramatic principles and one-act constraints.