Jay Españo News

 PrideArts has announced its full cast for its Chicago premiere of the musical GAY CARD. PrideArts’ artistic director Jay Españo will direct the musical, with Robert Ollis providing musical direction and conducting a five-piece band.

TOMMY ON TOP is a laugh out loud bedroom farce about a closeted hunky actor, Tommy Miller, who is about to become the first gay actor to win an Oscar – if he plays his cards right and keeps his queerness at bay. TOMMY ON TOP is by the British playwright Chris Woodley, whose credits include scripts for the long-running BBC series EASTENDERS. PrideArts Artistic Director Jay Españo is stage director and set designer.

PrideArts Artistic Director Jay Españo has announced his cast for the Chicago premiere of TOMMY ON TOP – a comedy that premiered in London’s West End at the Above the Stag Theatre last summer.

PrideArts will conclude its 2021-22 season with the Chicago premiere of TOMMY ON TOP – a comedy that premiered in London’s West End at the Above the Stag Theatre last summer. PrideArts Artistic Director Jay Españo made the announcement today.

Jay Españo will direct this comedy-drama by the author of the Judy Garland bio-play END OF THE RAINBOW, which was adapted as the Academy Award-winning film JUDY. In 4000 DAYS, Michael awakens from a three week-long coma that has affected his memory. He struggles to find the way back to his true self as a tug of war ensues between his pragmatic partner Paul and overbearing mother Carol.

An Australian musical, a comedy-drama from the writer whose play was adapted as the hit movie JUDY, an Uptown holiday celebration, a new Ruth Bader Ginsberg bio, and a fifth play to be announced, will comprise PrideArts' first season under newly appointed Artistic Director Jay Españo.

In 1998, Españo joined the prestigious Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company, where he trained with acclaimed director Nonon Padilla. He received a musical theater scholarship at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore in 2004, and after graduation worked extensively as an actor throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific, doing TV, theater, and film.

Former Tanghalang Pilipino actor Jay Españo has taken assistant director and movement coordinator responsibilities in the recently opened 'At the Flash,' a one-actor, five-character play that condenses LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) history from the 1960s to the 2000s.