A new stage for performing arts

There’s a new Theater for the Performing Arts in Metro Manila. Located at the Circuit Makati, the Samsung Performing Arts Theater is a 1,500 seater that was launched on July 14. It’s a truly impressive theater, built to the latest international specifications and with numerous amenities for both the performers on stage and the audience, that we’ve not seen in local theaters to this day. But more than all these physical attributes, it’s what this theater represents, in a post-pandemic Philippines, that made so many excited to attend the launch night.

If for us the audience it was an exciting clarion call that live performing would once again be part of our cultural agenda, imagine how the performers on stage were feeling. Whether a theater actor, ballet dancer, musical theater or opera singer, orchestra conductor and/or musician, or stagehand, the last two and a half years have been a painful, lonely journey of abstinence and frustration. You spend years honing your craft, and in one fell swoop of Covid, you’re forced to transition online and forego the immediacy of performing live, of interacting with an audience, and just feeling that your dreams and aspirations are being fulfilled.

Most everyone who’s anyone in the performing arts community were there that July 14 evening, excited to see what the theater was all about, and the possibilities it could hold for each of their respective disciplines. I spied National Artist Alice Reyes, Irene Marcos-Araneta and Alex Cortez, Mindy Perez-Rubio, Joy Virata and Liesl Batucan-del Rosario, Anton Juan, Robbie Guevara, and Audie Gemora, just to name a few.

To show how important Ayala Land is taking this rebirth of live performances and culture through the launch of the theater, no less than Ayala Corporation Chairman and CEO Fernando Zobel de Ayala went onstage to welcome us to the theater. And when he mentioned his sister Sofia Zobel-Elizalde, and that she’s the real cheerleader behind this project, that elicited wild applause and cheering—so he quipped about how she obviously had many friends present that night. Both formal yet intimate, his welcome remarks set the stage for the showcase of a stage show, entitled “Welcome Home,” that then followed.

Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, Bituin Escalante, and Sheila Valderrama-Martinez opened the number with drama and aplomb. And my personal highlights would include the excerpts from the upcoming musical “Mula Sa Buwan,” and Rachelle Gerodias-Park with her uncredited husband singing from the audience, which had us first scratching our heads wondering where his disembodied voice was coming from. And the “Nutcracker” excerpt performed by the Steps Dance Studio had them accompanied by the Mandaluyong Children’s Choir.

“Mula Sa Buwan” is an adaptation of Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac but transposed to Manila during the 1940’s. It had a successful run at the Ateneo pre-pandemic, and it now forms part of the festivities surrounding our 75th Anniversary of French-Filipino Friendship. It will have its “new” 2022 opening night at the Samsung Theater on Aug. 26. For those who haven’t yet watched this musical, take note of this run that shouldn’t be missed.

During the course of “Welcome Home,” we were reminded time and again of how this was live performing’s return, and the various merits of the new venue. While at times it felt like a “Please Curb Your Enthusiasm” scenario, this repetition could easily be forgiven, as it truly is the start of a new chapter of performing, and the people behind the theater are obviously excited. Built during the course of the pandemic, I can imagine how there were days that they wondered as to when the theater would even open, or that there’s droves of people seated as an audience. To see it come to fruition will no doubt be a happy relief, and something they’ll shout to the top.