Inside Last Dance: Hubo’t Hubad at Halxyon Club: Cast members John Segui, Gerald Magallanes, Paolo Domingo, and Kriszan Manipon discuss Japan host culture, stage nudity, family trauma, and turning a Poblacion nightclub into blackbox theater.
Ephesus Teatron stages Pinocchio the Musical at Ayala Malls Feliz Oct. 9–11 — with cast fresh off a very different Manila stage: the MET.
A 1970s zarzuela about a flood caused by illegal logging returns to Manila’s MET on Sept. 26–27 — the same weeks Habagat has left parts of Metro Manila underwater again.
Auditions for & Juliet pushed through Manila’s worst flooding in years — FHTC’s jukebox musical is heading to the still-unfinished Westside Resort.
Disney hasn’t sent a Theatrical production to Manila in 10 years. Frozen breaks that streak in April 2027 — and it’s the third major Broadway import the city has landed in a year.
An all-Filipino cast is about to headline Broadway’s Notebook musical — and Manila gets it before anywhere else outside North America.
A typhoon-flooded drive to Newport, three original Hotdog vocalists, and a Norwegian friend I nicknamed Annie Batungbakal when I was six — some songs just keep finding you.
Before the curtain even went up, there was a wall. Sticky notes, three colors, stacked over each other until the board underneath disappeared. The question at the top, in block letters: “Anong gusto mong i-flush sa bayang ito?” What do you want to flush out of this country? People had written names. Robin Padilla. Sara Duterte. Ramon Ang. Alan Peter Cayetano. Si Bato. A few feet away, a second wall — softer, messier, more personal — asked people to spill the real shit instead: “Self Love Stage.” “Ang malimutan siya =).” “Quarter Life Crisis T_T.” One wall wanted a country cleaned out. The other just wanted somebody to survive their twenties. Standing between the two, it was hard not to think: this is either going to be very smart or very tired. Ang Babae sa Septic Tank 4: Oh Sht! It’s Live sa Cheter!* is PETA’s stage leap for a franchise that’s spent fifteen years being a mirror to Philippine media — first to indie filmmaking, then to reinvention culture, and now, finally, to the …
Every caregiver of someone living with dementia eventually hits the same fork: correct the version of reality the person in front of them is living in, or step inside it with them. Stay a Little Longer, the newest production from 2TinCans Philippines, builds an entire play around that fork — and it doesn’t pick a side for the audience. The show runs August 29 and 30 at The Kabilin Center in Cebu City, and it arrives with a sturdier premise than most memory-loss narratives bother with. Instead of watching a woman disappear, the audience watches her stay whole — just accessible from a different angle in every scene. Grieving child. Young wife fighting to be chosen. Physician. Mother. An elderly woman trying to place the unfamiliar room around her. Same person, several timelines, one body doing all the holding. That’s a harder trick to stage than it sounds, and it’s the reason this one is worth knowing about before opening night rather than after. One Room, Every Version of Her The entire play is set …
Tanghalang Pilipino was the company to beat once again at this year’s Gawad Buhay Awards. “Kisapmata” took the night’s top play honor while “Gregoria Lakambini: A Pinay Pop Musical” claimed the top musical prize — marking the second year running that the company has walked away with both. It’s a feat TP also pulled off at last year’s 15th Gawad Buhay Awards, where “Balete” won Outstanding Play and “Pingkian: Isang Musikal” took Outstanding Musical, part of a haul that saw the company collect 17 of the 26 competitive prizes that night. This year’s sweep was more concentrated, powered almost entirely by a single production — “Kisapmata,” which racked up 11 trophies spanning acting, direction, and design, making it the single most-awarded production of the night at ceremonies held Tuesday at the Aliw Theater, hosted by Reb Atadero. Its leads, Jonathan Tadioan and Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan, won Male and Female Lead Performance in a Play, respectively, while Toni Go-Yadao and Marco Viaña took the featured-performance prizes in the same category. The production also won Outstanding Stage Direction …
