“Moon Hanging Low Over My Window and Other Poems,” a book of poetry written by Babeth Lolarga and published by UST Publishing House, will be available for pre-orders starting Aug. 1. Readers who will pre-order via Shopee will get the title for a special price of ₱520. The pre-order link will be made available when the...
Through the years since 2005, the Cinemalaya festival, a project of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), has been providing the more discerning moviegoers—many of them young people—some memorable films. During that first year, one of the independently produced movies in the full-length category was “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros.” It did not win...
Dear Colleague, “Break a leg!” for taking on what could be the best arts management post in the country. I wish you the most fulfilling time as you immerse in the hundreds of arts-related activities during your tenure. You will have the great fortune of experiencing and learning from hundreds of “live” shows in the...
The photos taken by professional and amateur photographers on June 17 told the disheartening story: The grande dame Manila Metropolitan Theater, or simply the Met, one of the cultural shrines of the antebellum period (along with the Manila Grand Opera House), fronting Liwasang Bonifacio—don’t call it Lawton—was on fire. Smoke billowed from the first floor...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
