Review: Chuang Stage & Company One Theatre's LEARNING HOW TO READ BY MOONLIGHT

History is being made on Broadway this season, with seven performers of Filipino descent simultaneously bringing luster to the stage and ticket buyers to the box office.

These performers include Darren Criss (“Maybe Happy Ending”) and Nicole Scherzinger (“Sunset Boulevard”), both 2025 Tony nominees, plus Lea Salonga (“Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends”), Eve Noblezada (“Cabaret”), Kay Sibal (“Six: The Musical”), Claire-Marie Hall (“Operation Mincemeat”), and Tatianna Córdoba (“Real Women Have Curves”).

While these Broadway successes represent progress and are reason for celebration, today’s headlines also include alarming news of the harsh treatment being given undocumented individuals and families. Indeed, an undocumented Filipino family is at the heart of gender non-conforming, first-generation Filipinx American theater artist Gaven D. Trinidad’s moving new play, “Learning How to Read by Moonlight,” now being given its world premiere in Boston in an emotionally affecting Chuang Stage and Company One Theatre co-production. 

Touching and deeply personal, the story centers on six-year-old Eddie, played with the wide-eyed openness of youth by Elijah Estolano Punzal, who uses his voice and considerable talents as a puppeteer to track the life of Eddie. The character has an imaginary friend, Jimmy (Jude Torres, in a performance filled with flair and youthful aplomb), who teaches him English while he deals with the multitude of challenges that come from growing up in an undocumented family. As immigrants, Eddie and his mother, Nanay, played with warmth and resolve by Christine Armenion, live on the poverty line, are bullied, and face the threat of deportation.

The multilingual tale with music – performed in both English and Tagalog with subtitles – captures the strength of a family bonded in their determination to respect their cultural heritage while maintaining their dignity through their love for one another and their core humanity. Under Natsu Onoda Power’s sensitive direction, the play allows the audience to witness this fraught journey and feel, at times, as if they have become a part of it, too.

Enhancing this is the participation of a different guest narrator at each show, whose presence is meant to become a unique and essential part of the story. Dianara Rivera, a queer, mixed-race Pilipina Puerto Rican who is Director of Narrative Strategy at the Asian American Resource Workshop, joined the storytelling at a recent performance at the Boston Center for the Arts.

The uniformly fine cast also includes Nicholas Papayoanou as Missus Josie, and Alfredo Reyes as Tatay, Eddie’s father who has remained in Manila to earn money for his family, but who calls to check on his loved ones. Jeffrey Song’s musical direction and arrangements provide a sensory flow that cleverly underpins the play’s various moods.

Puppet designer Amanda Gibson has imbued Eddie with all the charm you could find in a little boy whose life is seldom on an even keel, but whose spirit is indomitable. In addition to her role as director, Natsu Onoda Power has also designed a multi-level set that wonderfully blends different colors and textures and is enhanced by the work of props designer Kelly Smith. Grace Kroeger’s excellent projection design and Ashley Ting Yung’s mood-establishing lighting also add to the proceedings.

After an initial run at the BCA, the production moved to the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown, through June 1, and will then move to the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, June 5–8, as part of an effort by Chuang Stage and Company One to expand their pay-what-you-want ticketing in Boston’s neighborhoods and beyond.

Photo caption: Elijah Estolano Punzal and Nicholas Papayoanou in a scene from “Learning How to Read by Moonlight”