MERCURY MAKES THE SKIN GLOW to Have Staged Reading at Leviathan Lab
Written by Gaven D. Trinidad and directed by Roger Q. Mason, the free reading takes place at ART/New York
Leviathan Lab will present an industry-staged reading of Mercury Makes the Skin Glow, a new play by Gaven D. Trinidad (Learning How to Read by Moonlight), directed by Roger Q. Mason (Lavender Men, The Pride of Lions, The Duat).
The reading will take place Monday, April 20, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. at the Aibel Theatre at ART/New York (Spaces @ 520), 520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, in Manhattan. Admission is free and seating is limited. Following a developmental reading in Manila, Philippines, in January 2026, this marks the play's first reading in New York. RSVP: Industry Reading RSVP Form.
Mercury Makes the Skin Glow is a 2025 finalist for both the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
About the Play
Filipinos love love. Filipinos love beauty. Filipinos love beauty pageants. Veteran pageant queen Carmelita establishes a new circuit of pageants for the Filipino American community in New York City. Against her daughter Jesca's wishes, Carmelita coerces her seven-year-old grandson, Ernesto, to participate, which unearths troubling questions of race, identity, colorism, and the Global South's multi-billion-dollar obsession with skin whitening. Part unhinged teleserye/telenovela, part beauty pageant, and part historical reckoning, the play investigates how the dangerous pursuit of "whiteness" is more than skin deep.
The cast features Arianne Recto (Export Quality, co-founder of Ma-Yi Theater) as Carmelita, Liz Casasola (Dogeaters, Imelda the Musical, co-founder of Broadway Barkada) as Jesca, Nacho Tambunting (Felix Starro, Spring Awakening - Manila 2026) as Diego, Del Gonzales (The Adventures of Beastie) as Sebastián, Matthew De Lorme (Stuy or Die) as Ernie, and Karl Jingco (Eksena PH) as the Pageant Host. Additional creative team: Stage Manager: Mars Neri. Production Assistant: Soomin Sun. Produced by Ariel Estrada (Producing Artistic Director, Leviathan Lab) and Associate Producer Nacho Tambunting.
Mercury Makes the Skin Glow examines colorism, colonial beauty standards, and the skin whitening industry within Filipino and Filipino American communities. The play contains themes of intergenerational conflict, cultural erasure, and the psychological impact of beauty norms on children. Leviathan Lab invites its audiences to bear witness to each other's humanity and to lean in with empathy and love.
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