The rehearsal hall turns tense and the dancers stand still as Agnes Locsin critiques their execution of the steps. She slowly rises, touching her abdomen as she points to the exact spot where—and how—they must lift in order to deliver the right intensity and angle that the step requires. It’s clear that she has mastered...
Category: Theater
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‘Mula sa Buwan’ switches its focus from past to future
It’s easy to get “Cyrano de Bergerac” wrong. If you overstate its romance and its inherently ridiculous premise, this story of a cartoonishly long-nosed soldier helping a young cadet woo the woman they both love can come off as frivolous. To an extent, this is how I felt about the 2016 production of “Mula sa...
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Live theater, digital interaction educate teens on drinking issue
Filipinos consume an average of seven liters of alcohol every year, according to the World Population Review. While that might appear manageable to many, the Philippine College of Physicians recently presented numbers sufficient to give Filipino parents a nightmare: About 70% of students had their first taste of alcohol at age 14, and many of...
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Dancers rebound with Alice Reyes Dance Philippines
Because the dance world operates on rather lean subsidies provided through donations by private entities or local governments, shifts in operations depend highly on socioeconomic situations. The pandemic just about crushed this art form, with theaters and other performance venues closing down, even curtailing dance companies’ additional sustenance from ticket sales, aside from denying dancers...
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The extraordinary Cherie Gil
Cherie Gil came across in varying ways—imperious and intimidating; funny, warm and open; beguiling and sexy. Writing this, thinking about her and my time with her, I realize I probably really knew only one facet of a woman I love dearly and hold in great esteem. I’m certain her family, her barkada (the women—and man—who I fondly...
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‘Mula sa Buwan’: In the spirit of defiance
When “Mula sa Buwan” returns on Aug. 26 at Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit Makati, it will not be the same creature that played to packed houses every performance four years ago. In turning Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Francisco “Soc” Rodrigo’s Filipino translation of that play into a musical, director and co-creator...
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Thank you, National Artist ‘Sir’ Ricky Lee
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...
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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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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...