Official BOKYA poster. Courtesy of TEATRO Lasalliana. TEATRO Lasalliana, the theater organization of De La Salle University-Dasmariñas (DLSU-D), is staging four Filipino one-act plays in BOKYA: Mga Piling Dula para sa mga Taya . The production runs from October 28 to 30, 2026, at Tanghalang Julian Felipe in Dasmariñas, Cavite. For BOKYA , TEATRO Lasalliana takes inspiration from Filipino variety and game shows. Its title draws on bokya , used here for losing a bet or coming away empty-handed. BOKYA's Four Plays Ganito ang Pinangarap Kong Kasal by Eljay Castro Deldoc follows France, Kris, and Noel through questions of love, friendship, and marriage. The play sets the lives they imagine for themselves against the expectations placed on them. Deldoc also wrote Pilipinas Kong Mahal with All the Overcoat , which follows Ambet and Nato, operators of an online publication. Their pursuit of viral content becomes complicated when clients ask them to rewrit...

Official Chicago Manila artwork. Photograph by Jeremy Daniel, courtesy of GMG Productions. Chicago The Musical will return to The Theatre at Solaire in Parañaque City from March 9 to 28, 2027, GMG Productions announced in its October 8, 2026 release. The Manila engagement is presented by GMG Productions in association with Barry & Fran Weissler and David Ian, as part of the show's 30th-anniversary global tour. The musical played the same venue in 2014. Its return adds another date to a 2027 theater calendar that also includes Heathers the Musical , led by Gerardine Sacdalan , at Solaire from January 21 to February 7. Roxie, Velma and a very useful scandal Set in 1920s Chicago, the musical follows Roxie Hart, a housewife and nightclub dancer facing a murder trial. With lawyer Billy Flynn handling her case, she tries to turn the crime into a media spectacle. Fellow inmate and nightclub star Velma Kelly has her own ambitions, and Roxie's sudden fame gives her another r...

Editorial graphic by Unsaulicited using the supplied official Puregold Teatro Panalo logo. Puregold Teatro Panalo has shortlisted 26 original Filipino one-act works from 373 entries, according to the festival's press release supplied to Unsaulicited on October 7, 2026. The shortlist includes 16 straight plays and 10 musicals. The shortlist is not the festival lineup. Another round of selection will narrow it to 12 works: eight straight plays and four musicals. Those selected works are scheduled for the inaugural festival from February 20 to March 14, 2027, according to the latest release. Puregold senior marketing manager Ivy Hayagan-Piedad chairs the festival, with Vincent de Jesus as festival director. Wishbone Collective Inc. is the festival organizer providing development and production support. The 16 shortlisted straight plays The titles and credits below follow the supplied press release. The notes identify differences in its accompanying shortlist artwor...

A violin performance during the MSO Music Academy opening at One Ayala on October 6, 2026. The MSO Music Academy opened its One Ayala branch in Makati on October 6, 2026, according to the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO). The new branch offers voice and instrument lessons for children, teens, and adults, joining the academy's existing studio at Ayala Malls Circuit. MSO says the One Ayala branch has six regular studios, each equipped with a piano. A separate, larger studio is available for group lessons, workshops, masterclasses, and small recitals. The larger studio at the new MSO Music Academy branch in One Ayala. Lessons at the One Ayala branch cover piano, violin, viola, cello, guitar, flute, trumpet, saxophone, harp, and voice, among other offerings listed by MSO. The academy says students can prepare for performances and competitions, or take lessons simply for the enjoyment of making music. MSO also says it supports its teachers through ...

Official workshop artwork courtesy of GMG Productions. Stagedoor is offering a way to try Elphaba’s green makeup yourself. Presented by GMG Productions in partnership with Myrene Santos, the Wicked -inspired makeup workshop takes place on Sunday, October 25, 2026, at Opera Haus in Makati. The official registration page describes a demonstration covering skin preparation, building an even green base, contouring, highlighting and creating a finish for the stage. Hands-on participants will recreate the look on themselves with Santos’s step-by-step guidance. An observer ticket is also available for those who want to watch the demonstration and join the Q&A. Myrene Santos’s theater background Myrene Santos. Photo supplied by GMG Productions. Santos is a Manila-based wig maker, wig dresser, and hair and makeup artist. GMG’s biography lists her as Deputy Head of Wigs, Hair and Makeup for the Hamilton International Tour from 2023 to 2024, and in th...

The principal cast of Last Dance: Hubo’t Hubad . Image courtesy of the production. Last Dance: Hubo’t Hubad could have been staged in a theater. It is better that it was not. I watched the 3 PM press preview of Last Dance: Hubo’t Hubad on September 28, 2026 at Halxyon Club in Poblacion, Makati. Staging the play inside an actual nightclub immediately gives it something a conventional theater would have had to recreate. The compact stage, club lighting, tight spaces and nightlife atmosphere already belong to the world of the story. The play first shows the men at work, dancing and selling the fantasy expected from them in a male revue bar. It eventually leaves the club stage for a practically rundown communal dressing room, where most of the story stays. Attention moves with it, from what these men present to customers to everything they carry backstage. The work behind the fantasy Stories about men in this kind of work could easily be sensationalized, romanticized or ...

Camille Thomas joins the Manila Symphony Orchestra for Centennial Concert V on October 22, 2026. The Manila Symphony Orchestra continues its 100th anniversary season on October 22, 2026 with a program that gives as much space to something new as it does to the classical repertoire. MSO Centennial Concert V brings Franco-Belgian cellist Camille Thomas to the Proscenium Theater alongside the world premiere of a work by two Filipino National Artists. MSO Principal Conductor Maestro Marlon Chen leads the orchestra at 7:30 PM in a program featuring the World Premiere of Pasasalamat by National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab , with text by National Artist for Literature Virgilio S. Almario . Thomas performs Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33 , while Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, Op. 48 closes the evening. MSO Principal Conductor Maestro Marlon Chen leads Centennial Concert V. Ryan Cayabyab and Virgilio Almario premiere Pasasalamat Co...

Multwoh: Patay na Patay Sa’yo , Rodina Singh’s Puregold CinePanalo 2026 entry starring Sassa Gurl and Joao Constancia, is a masterclass in storytelling. Not because it makes its story unnecessarily complicated, but because details, jokes, emotions, visual clues, and plot devices keep finding their place until the film feels far more intricate than its almost simple premise first suggests. Its depth reveals itself gradually. The film never buries straightforward emotions under unnecessary symbolism just to prove it has something important to say, nor does it constantly point toward its own cleverness. Singh gives the material enough confidence to let meaning accumulate naturally. By the time you begin seeing how carefully everything has been arranged, Multwoh has already done most of the work without making the construction feel mechanical. Depth without showing off The storytelling knows how to introduce something casually and trust it to matter when it needs to....

Patay Gutom is warm, easy to watch, and proudly queer. Agot Isidro is terrific, but uneven visuals, convenient storytelling, an underwhelming soundtrack, and chemistry that never fully clicks keep the film from becoming as compelling as its premise could have been. Watching Patay Gutom reminded me of Wansapanataym , and I mean that as a compliment. It has that familiar mix of the supernatural, family drama, humor, sentimentality, and a life lesson somewhere underneath. It feels like the kind of fantasy story many Filipinos grew up watching on television, except this time a queer romance gets to sit comfortably at the center of it. A visual idea stronger than its execution The rotoscoped animation is impossible to ignore, and in concept, it fits. A supernatural story like this benefits from looking slightly removed from reality, and there are scenes where the treatment gives Patay Gutom a distinct fantasy quality. Rotoscoping can already feel jarring at first si...

PETA brings Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang at iba pa… back to the stage for a new generation. Photo courtesy of PETA. PETA’s Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang at iba pa… is back at the PETA Theater Center in Quezon City from September 21 to 30, 2026 , bringing together two stories by Severino Reyes, a new story by J-mee Katanyag, and a refreshed production aimed at children growing up in a very different media landscape. Very limited public tickets range from ₱1,000 to ₱1,800, with a longer run already planned for February 2027. Lola Basyang has been around long enough to outlive several ways of telling a story. She began in the pages of Liwayway , then moved through film, comics, radio, television, books, ballet, animation, and theater. PETA first staged Christine Bellen’s theatrical adaptation in 2005. Twenty-one years later, the company is opening the book again without pretending that the children listening today live in the same world. Old stories, new questio...