Thank you, Sir Ricky Lee. For going all the way to UPLB (University of the Philippines Los Banos) back in 2012 for the original staging we did of your novel “Para Kay B.” It was a small production. You didn’t know any of us but there you were gracing us with your presence. When I...
Category: Culture
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Filipinos in Australia keep ties to motherland, enrich adopted home
SYDNEY—Pancit canton, pork barbecue, chopsuey, inihaw na tilapia, sinigang, and the star of any Filipino table, Cebu lechon belly—what a lunch treat for a group of Pinoy Sydneysiders, one of whom felt a hankering for Pinoy food. I thought: How apt that we were feasting today, June 12, Philippine Independence Day. One among our group...
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The way we were: Slice of Pinoy life, according to Tito Larry
Like many Filipinos in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I looked forward to each new installment of “Slice of Life,” the long-running and much-loved cartoonist Larry Alcala. The thrill was in searching for and spotting his image with the trademark mustache and black-rimmed eyeglasses hiding somewhere in the crowd, in a busy street, or in an...
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Filipino among musical theater writers chosen for prestigious NY residencies
A Filipino composer-lyricist is among 16 musical theater writers of new musicals chosen for residencies at the prestigious Rhinebeck Writers Retreat in New York this summer. A total of 145 applications representing 290 musical theater writers went through two rounds of review by noted composers in the United States. Paulo K. Tirol of Manila was...
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Miguel Faustmann: gentle lion of the theater
Much-heralded actor-director-production designer Miguel Faustmann, whose versatile performances had long been witnessed by audiences onstage, in local and foreign movies, and in TV series and commercials since the mid-1970s, died in his sleep on May 15 at the age of 67. A favorite choice of directors and producers for his ability to perform in English,...
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1st Bikol book festival honors pioneers, spotlights new works
There was no better day to open the first-ever Bikol Book Festival than last Easter Sunday, April 17. Like Mary Magdalene who came to visit the tomb of her teacher, the delegates visited the graves of two of our pioneering women writers in the region, Dr. Maria Lilia F. Realubit and Soccoro Federis Tate. Realubit...
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‘Necessary Contexts’ and the question of being human in a world that is becoming less and less humane
Editor’s note: These are remarks delivered by the author at the recent online launch of the book “Necessary Contexts: Essays for Our Times,” published by Gantala Press and Alfredo F. Tadiar Library. As I begin, I thought of mentioning an important detail that caught my eye in RosarioGarcellano’s first book, “Mean Streets: Essays on the Knife...
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‘Harvest Moon’: Stories, poems and photos of climate crisis
In a world where changes are increasingly disruptive, creative works matter more than ever, not just to better understand our complex reality through stories, but also because stories shape our imagination and inspire the future. “Harvest Moon is a book that heeds the call to reimagine how we are going to survive and thrive in...
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Virgin Labfest: ‘untried, untested, unstaged’ plays back on stage this June
Exactly two years and three months since Covid-19 shut down all of Manila theater, the Virgin Labfest will return on June 16–26 to the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), marking the reopening of in-person theatrical performances in the capital region. Or so the plan goes, according to the organizers of the 17th edition of...