The poster for Super J: The Musical reads like a comic-book cover. A girl in red stands under a stylized letter J, and the whole design promises a reveal. Trick Creatives Production (TCP), the Manila theater company behind the show, built it that way on purpose. Most of its audience will be students, and a cape gets them into the seats.
The musical they sit down to is about a storm that takes people’s children, and about the ten years of grief the families carry afterward.
“Super J uses the superhero framework to capture the audience’s attention,” writer-director Patrick Libao told ElysPlanet. Under that framework is TCP’s fourth season, and a show that pushes back on one of the most comfortable things Filipinos say about themselves: that we are resilient.
The Least, the Last, and the Lost
The show started after TCP’s previous season, in a conversation between Libao and Fr. Nolan Que, the priest who wrote the story, about what to stage next. Que said he wanted to “shed light on people who often feel like the least, the last, and the lost.” The phrase stuck, and it eventually gave the musical its subtitle.
The two have worked together for the past two seasons, a pairing that fits a company Libao describes as both a performing arts group and a ministry. Que’s perspective, Libao said, let the team approach the characters “with greater empathy” and explore how faith gives meaning to people in the middle of loss. The company’s larger hope, as he put it, is theater that “reminds people that they are seen, valued, and not alone.”
Everyone’s Name Starts With J
Every lead character has a name that starts with J, and the musical holds back which of them is the Super J of the title.
The girl on the poster is Jenjen, played by Juliel Margio Orap. Libao said she was picked for the key art because her character is the one who pulls the storylines together a decade later, so following her leads the audience toward the reveal.
What ties everyone together is a devastating storm in which each family loses someone. The storm is fictional, Libao said, but drawn from something every Filipino knows: major storms that keep arriving and keep leaving loss and displacement behind. Three storylines pick up ten years later, when a second massive storm hits the country and a similar tragedy plays out again.
The resilience question sits in that repeat. Libao said resilience runs through the whole play without being its main focus, and it gets harder to ignore once the story jumps ahead and the same kind of storm comes back.
The Video That Came Out of the Flooding
Alongside the comic-book material, TCP released a video about disaster negligence and accountability. Libao said it came out while continuous rains were once again flooding much of the country, and the company felt a show touching on those same realities should say something while it was happening.
It’s the same recurring flooding ElysPlanet looked at in what a flooded street reveals about who gets to call it “bad weather”.
Inside the theater, the tone is quieter. Libao said negligence and accountability are “only subtly woven into the story,” left for the audience to notice through what happens to the characters while the plot stays on the families.
Every Grief Gets Its Own Instrument
Libao called the music the clearest change from TCP’s earlier seasons: Next in Line: The Musical, set in a post-apocalyptic world; Hoy: The Musical, about mental health, told through a student on the autism spectrum; and Kalye A: The Musical, about people who grow up in the same neighborhood under very different circumstances. The aim with Super J, he said, was to build on those shows rather than try to outdo them, and that meant a more focused approach to the score.
Composer and musical director JP Ocampo gave each lead character a sound of their own. Ruth lost her baby, and her songs lean on lullaby-like melodies that mark her as a grieving mother. Joel lost his child, and an electric guitar carries his guilt and resentment. Jenjen grew up near the church, so bells follow her through the show.
“Through these musical choices,” Libao said, “the characters are given another foundation to communicate their stories.”
Built for a School Auditorium
The run lasts from September 2026 to March 2027. Libao can’t yet say how many stops it will make, since performances are scheduled around each school’s calendar. Confirmed engagements so far:
- De La Salle Santiago Zobel School, at both its Alabang and Vermosa campuses
- Lourdes School of Mandaluyong
- Other partner schools through KADSA, the Kalookan Diocese Schools’ Association, a network of Catholic schools under the Diocese of Kalookan
In past seasons, TCP has staged several performances over a single weekend for students from different schools, and has taken shows outside Metro Manila as far as Leyte. Libao said the company usually learns its full reach only after a season ends.
Because TCP works closely with Catholic school communities, it writes every production with students in mind and tests its choices at previews, where representatives from partner schools give feedback that helps keep a heavy story within reach of a young audience.
The Trouble With “Resilient”
Libao was direct about what he hopes a teenager is still thinking about after the lights come up. The first is heroism without superpowers: courage that comes from ordinary people and the way they care for each other when things go badly.
The second is harder to hear in a country that has turned endurance into a compliment. “We hope they question the idea that Filipinos should simply be resilient in the face of hardship,” he said. He wants students to think about the change, compassion, and responsibility that could spare the next family from going through the same thing, instead of just enduring it.
The musical leaves that one open. The poster’s closing line asks who Filipinos turn to for courage when resilience runs out, and Libao said the question “is meant for the audience to realize on their own.”
Asked whether he worried audiences might recognize a real storm, community, or failure in the story too clearly, he said he didn’t. The company wants people to see their own reality in the characters, whether that’s a storm, a neighborhood, or something that happened to them personally.
Meet the Js
TCP introduced the cast through a set of comic-style character posters. Several roles list more than one actor.
Super J: The Musical (The Lost, The Least, and The Last)
- First public show: October 2, 2026, 5:00 PM, Lourdes School of Mandaluyong
- Tickets: ₱500
- Reservations and inquiries: Patricia Suyat, 0917 374 6003
- Run: September 2026 to March 2027, touring partner schools; more dates to be announced as schools confirm
- Credits: Written and directed by Patrick Libao; story by Fr. Nolan Que; music composed and directed by JP Ocampo. A Trick Creatives Production, fourth season.