Multi-awarded playwright-director Floy Quintos breaks away from his self-imposed retirement from the theater to usher in Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas's 45th theatrical season with his one-act play 'The Reconciliation Dinner.'
Before the formal launch of Dulaang UP’s 45th season, comprised of “The Reconciliation Dinner,” a new one-act play by Floy Quintos, premiering on Nov. 18, and “Kung Paano Nanalo sa Karera si Rosang Taba,” a stage adaptation by Maynard Manansala and Rody Vera, DUP paid tribute to its founding artistic director, the late Tony Mabesa, also National Artist for Theater.
Before a packed house, London’s West End director-choreographer Nick Winston’s sci-fi-centric reimagining of Queen and Ben Elton’s hit jukebox musical 'We Will Rock You' held its gala performance last Wednesday, which also launched the new production’s global tour starting with a limited run in the Philippines, followed by Singapore and New Zealand next year.
The subject of the new original Filipino-made musical, “I Will, The Musical,” renowned medical doctor-philanthropist Willie Ong formally opened the show’s one-night-only performance at the Manila Metropolitan Theatre on Friday night. Diagnosed with clinical depression during his early adulthood, Dr. Ong overcame such a disability surrounded by the people who most loved him, his faith in God, and his longtime mission to attend to many Filipinos who needed medical attention pro bono.
Although in many theatrical venues here and abroad, eating and drinking are only allowed during the intermission, and at a designated location at the back, there are also instances where eating and drinking are even encouraged, such as inside bar theaters.
Live performances, more specifically in-person theatrical productions, are slowly making their transformative presence felt once again, which was practically nil during the onslaught of the pandemic. One of these early curtain-raisers is the Philippine Stagers Foundation’s string of short plays on Saturday nights, which have launched both the theater group’s bar theater concept and a black box theatre venue located in the heart of Sampaloc, Manila.
We recently sat down with “Miss Saigon” alum Gerald Santos and his award-winning composer-writer-director-manager Rommel Ramilo to talk about their wins at the 2020 Aliw and BWW Philippines Awards, recent and upcoming works, finding the creative oasis and breaking new grounds on the virtual platform, and more. Dubbed ‘10 and 10,’ here are the excerpts of the conversations that focus on 10 questions that matter to each of them.
About seven months into the pandemic lockdown, Gerald Santos ('Miss Saigon,' 'Sweeney Todd'), together with his closest friends in the performing arts, is not missing a beat. He's now back on his feet, singing his heart out before an audience who are supposedly elsewhere a?' most likely in front of the computer screen.
The coronavirus pandemic may have caused stage productions to prematurely close, but Tanghalang Pilipino (TP), the resident theater company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), has prepared a slew of programs on its temporary home a?' the digital platform.
Given the recent developments on COVID-19 and the government's mandated community quarantine, GMG Productions, along with GWP Entertainment and Virtus Live, has announced that the remaining performances of Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical have been canceled.
Good musicals are like magnets a?' they attract crowds from near and far that not even pervasive talks of a global pandemic could stop them from inflicting their charm on their willing patrons.
When Matilda The Musical premiered at the Cambridge Theatre in the West End in 2011, The Guardian gave it five stars and described it as a?oeanarchically joyous, gleefully nasty, and an ingenious musical adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel of the same name.a?? About nine years after, now a beloved musical for all ages, Matilda The Musical finally opened at The Theatre at Solaire in Manila for a limited three-week engagement.
The best-selling book and winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Novel in Filipino in 2015, Si Janus Silang at ang Tiyanak ng Tabon, written by Edgar Calabia Samar, has been adapted into a stage play, bearing the same title, runs this weekend at St. Mary's College in Quezon City.
Winner of 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, The Band's Visit makes its international premiere in the capital of the Philippines on 13 March 2020. Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group's Bobby Garcia helms the production, which the Chicago Tribune describes as a?oeremarkable and boundlessly compassionate and humanistic piece of theater.a??
Winner of 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, The Band's Visit makes its international premiere in the capital of the Philippines on 13 March 2020. Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group's Bobby Garcia helms the production, which the Chicago Tribune describes as a?oeremarkable and boundlessly compassionate and humanistic piece of theater.a??
IT'S GONNA BE GOOD! Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal, which features the book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt, closes Ateneo Blue Repertory's (BlueREP) 28th theatrical season.
Prinstar Music Philippines' San Pedro Calungsod The Musical, which stars Miss Saigon alum Gerald Santos, held a special performance at the Music Museum in Greenhills, San Juan, yesterday, 25 February 2020, at 7 p.m.
Repertory Philippines (REP) opens its 2020 season with the backstage comedy Stage Kiss, a straight play written by distinguished playwright Sarah Ruhl, who also wrote The Vibrator Play and Eurydice.
During the whole run of the play, after every end of the show, we will have debriefing and discussion with the audience, which will be facilitated by our actors and partners. We hope that it will further deepen the understanding of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus).a?? a?" Maribel Legarda, PETA Artistic Director
This year, 2020, marks the return of one of the more successful stage musical adaptations about the life and death of Saint Pedro Calungsod (1654 a?' 1672), a young Filipino missionary and the second Filipino saint. Prinstar Music Philippines' production of San Pedro Calungsod The Musical, which features the book and lyrics in English by Antonio Rommel Ramilo and music by Ramilo and pop star-thespian Gerald Santos, kicks off its Manila run this Friday, 24 January 2020, at 3 p.m., at Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay City.
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