WALA LANG
Twin buildings are rising in Diliman near the Carillon and the Film Center. One is the Black Box KAL Theater, the other a gallery. The former has state-of-the-art lighting and sound equipment and can sit 350 to 450 people in rows facing a stage or in tiers on four sides as a theater-in-the-round, or on three sides like an amphitheater, whatever suits a performance. The latter is a large hall perfect for exhibits, celebrations, or a creative entrepreneurial move for artists and companies doing business in the arts.
Both theater and gallery are gifts of U.P. alumnus Ignacio “Chony” Gimenez. When a pre-med student, he caught stage fever but realized he had entrepreneurial inclinations. He made his first million before age 30, and now he’s giving back.
Edinburgh’s The Fringe is Gimenez’ inspiration for the KAL gallery. Scotlan’s capital is the place to be in the month of August when artists, producers, and creative industry executives, media, and audiences get to know each other and do business. More than two million visitors arrived in Edinburgh the other month to check out performers and exhibitors in 288 venues throughout the city. Performances are identified under theater, comedy, dance, physical theater, circus, cabaret, children's shows, musicals, opera, music, spoken word, exhibitions, and events. There were nearly 500 of the top street performers and artists, including buskers, on the most prominent places at city center.
The Fringe is a commercial operation, attracting nearly 1,400 accredited producers, programmers, bookers, talent agencies, festivals, and others from 49 countries, looking for talent and shows, providing touring and other opportunities. Gimenez hopes that in time, KAL theater and gallery can organize similar events that bring talent to national and international attention and strengthen the performing arts component of Philippine creative industries.
The seed was planted in the teenager Chony’s mind by then English professor, playwright, and dramatist Wilfredo Ma. Guerrero. The professor was prolific and wrote dozens of plays besides staging masterpieces like Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire with talented students, including Joy Virata, who is still active with Repertory Philippines, and Maureen Tiongco, who made it big on Broadway.
Guerrero had thought of bringing drama to the provinces and was auditioning. Freshman Chony lined up, gave his all, was accepted to the newly organized U.P. Mobile Theater, and as the cherry on top, was awarded a scholarship.
The idea was for student volunteers to perform all over the country thereby sharpening their acting skills while enriching the cultural life of provincial communities. About a dozen students would arrive at a town and perform on Saturdays and Sundays at school assembly halls, plazas, wherever. Town officials, congressmen, schoolteachers, barrio people would take care of board and lodging. The group usually presented three one-act Guerrero plays—a comedy, a drama, and a light piece.
Chony recalls that they used borrowed bedsheets as telón (stage curtain), a makeshift backdrop, and little more than a sofa and two chairs. Wearing homemade costumes and with minimal props, they brought audiences to laughter and tears.
The mobile theater was a life-changing experience that Gimenez never forgot. Working as part of a group, making do with whatever was available, coping with the unexpected, gauging feedback, all came in good stead in real life.
Chony grew up in Malate, on Mabini Street near San Andres and went to Malate Catholic School. His mother ran a snack bar, which is where the young boy learned the ins and outs of the food business. At school, the madres were into dramatics and the boy was bitten by the theater bug. Just the same, reality trumped fascination and on finishing high school, Chony enrolled in pre-med at U.P.
He got his B.A. but didn’t proceed to medical school, deciding that business was his thing. He went to the newly established Asian Institute of Management for his M.B.A.and got a job at Philippine Carpets where he rose to vice president. An irresistible opportunity came his way, a sandwich stand at the Manila International Airport that he got cheap and on installment.
As Gimenez tells it, he was totally hands on even as he continued at Pacific Carpets. The sandwich stand was in a separate structure by the airport terminal entrance and he lived literally above the shop, in tight quarters on the second floor. He woke up before dawn to see to marketing and preparations, reported to his corporate office but returned to the store at lunch time and rushed back to the office by two o’clock. Business boomed and in due course was able to get the food concession at Jai Alai on Taft Avenue where the Sky Room was one of Manila’s top restaurants. It was by the gallery where wealthy aficionados placed their bets while watching the pelotari below.
“Making your first million is tough; the rest is easy though sometimes it’s like a roller coaster ride. The thing is not to give up,” Gimenez says. He went into the pizza business though missed out on Shakey’s Cubao that proved to be hugely profitable. He speculated in the stock, lost a small fortune but rather than retreat, proceeded to buy a seat on the Manila Stock Exchange. Then he went into construction and subsequently into the hotel business. He’s still in construction and presently owns Davao’s venerable Apo View Hotel and several well-known hotel chains. Gimenez adds that hotels were empty during the Covid pandemic years and he decided to provide free lodging to the hardworking doctors and nurses.
Gimenez explains, “I am a saver. I have simple tastes. My cars are old models, I don’t live in a mansion, I have no designer clothes, no jeweled watches. I work not for the money but because I like to work. I look for opportunities as a challenge. Sometimes I win, sometimes I Iose. Fortunately, through work and luck, I have won more times than I’ve lost. It’s just that success is measured by the difference between revenue and expense. Of course I want to have something set aside for a rainy day, for my family. But beyond that I give for the causes I believe in.”
Among the causes Gimenez believes in is culture and the arts and his help is mind-boggling. He offered to build a theater for his old college, the College of Arts and Letters. It took time for the University to decide on location and architect. Emily Abrera, then Cultural Center of the Philippines chairperson and Gimenez’ friend and neighbor, had the same idea and persuaded Gimenez to build another Black Box Theater for the CCP. So it was that Teatro Ignacio Gimenez (“TIG”) was inaugurated in September 2022.
With the CCP main building under rehabilitation, TIG is the only functioning venue in the CCP Pasay City complex, hosting everything from a visiting flamenco group and among others, to Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, the musical Carousel, and a solo saxophone concert.
The young boy Chony has gone a long way, from snack bar helper and sandwich stand operator to business magnate and from stage hand and amateur actor to performing arts benefactor and visionary. May there be more like Ignacio Gimenez.
Notes: (a) KAL stands for C[K]ollege of Arts and Letters; and (b) buskers are singers, dancers, instrument players, actors, and other artists who perform where crowds gather, pocketing coins and bills tossed their way by appreciative audiences.
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