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...

Before the open technical dress rehearsal at Newport Performing Arts Theater. Photo: Saul de Jesus / Unsaulicited. I never checked the time during Bongga Ka, ’Day! , and that was one of the first things I told friends after its open technical dress rehearsal at Newport Performing Arts Theater. Between the Hotdog songs, the energy of Coco Banana, and stage pictures that kept changing without slowing the show down, the evening held my attention. These are impressions of a rehearsal rather than a verdict on the finished public run. A few lapel microphone problems surfaced, but most of the technical work already felt well put together. Bongga Ka, ’Day!: The Annie Batungbakal Musical builds a story around Hotdog’s music and Annie, a House of Pasion sales clerk who dreams of becoming a fashion designer and entering the glamorous world of Coco Banana. Directed by Chris Millado, with a book by Liza Magtoto, the musical gives that familiar soundtrack a new set of pe...

Gen G: GG na ’to! is the centerpiece of PETA and Move to Change Foundation’s Project GG. Photo courtesy of PETA. When I first wrote about PETA’s Gen G: GG na ’to! , the focus was on the choices audiences would make inside the play. Young people find themselves running a community in a flooded Philippines, and the audience helps decide what happens next. The production is also part of something that extends beyond its performances. Project GG: Game Changers for Good Governance is a youth-centered theater and civic participation campaign from the Philippine Educational Theater Association and Move to Change Foundation, Inc. Alongside Gen G , it brings together workshops, learning activities, storytelling, and community conversations. PETA describes its aim as giving young people opportunities to practice participation through listening, asking questions, making decisions, and working with others. The distinction is useful: Gen G is the play, while Project G...

The FEU Bamboo Band returns to the FEU Auditorium with MALAYA: Songs of Freedom on Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 7:30 PM . Presented by the FEU Center for the Arts, the one-hour concert brings together Philippine folk music, reggae, and international songs in a program about freedom, peace, and cultural identity. “Kapayapaan,” “Wind of Change,” “Bayan Ko,” and “Imagine” are among the announced selections. Hearing them in a program built around Philippine bamboo instruments is the particular draw here, with the FEU Chorale and a soloist from the FEU Theater Guild joining the band for two of the evening’s collaborations. I’ve previously featured the band’s Let It Beatles and Ang Tangi Kong Ikaw concerts on Unsaulicited. MALAYA offers another way into its work: a selection of songs connected by what they express, rather than by a single artist’s catalog.

Tententenen runs at Teatro Marco in Maginhawa, Quezon City, this October. Official artwork courtesy of Teatro Marco. A Reddit rumor is threatening Miss Bu’s dream wedding. As the head of Bubu Beauty Company, the top beauty brand on the fictional “TukTok” Shop, she has a business at stake, too. Her team has to save the celebration without losing the brand. Tententenen , written and directed by Mark Ghosn , brings that crisis to Teatro Marco in Maginhawa, Quezon City, from October 10 to 25, 2026 . The new Filipino comedy draws on memes, liveselling, fandoms, and blind items, with characters including an underwear liveseller and a high-waist-loving dancer. “Sabi nga nila, mahirap i-explain ang humor natin sa iba, isang word o expression lang, gets na natin agad ang isa’t isa,” says Ghosn. He wants the play to pay tribute to those shared references and preserve something of what Filipinos found funny in 2026. Who is in Tententenen? Janine Lloce plays Miss ...

If you grew up hearing someone described as kengkoy , you may have known the word long before you knew the man. Kenkoy was Francisco "Kenkoy" Harabas, the Filipino comic character who first appeared in Liwayway in 1929. Written by Romualdo Ramos and illustrated by Tony Velasquez, Mga Kabalbalan ni Kenkoy followed a funny, fashionable, and sometimes misguided Filipino trying to keep up with a changing world. Almost a century later, Alice Reyes Dance Philippines is bringing him into contemporary dance. KENKOY runs from September 18 to 26, 2026 at Hyundai Hall, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City. Directed and choreographed by ARDP Artistic Director Ronelson Yadao, the new work looks at identity, colonial influence, humor, and resilience through one of Philippine pop culture's earliest recognizable characters. Who exactly is Kenkoy? Kenkoy is interesting because his name survived even for people who never read the comics. The chara...

I grew up with bits and pieces of South Pacific before I ever really understood the whole musical. “Some Enchanted Evening” and “Happy Talk” were already familiar, and I still remember a South Pacific programme we had at home from Repertory Philippines' 1997 production. I wasn't sure at first whether I had actually seen it, but my sister confirmed that we watched that production as kids. Seeing the UST Conservatory of Music's South Pacific: The Comeback at the Proscenium Theater brought all of that familiarity back in a completely different way. Directed by Paolo O'Hara, with Daniel Bartolome leading the UST Symphony Orchestra, this production made a musical that first opened on Broadway in 1949 feel remarkably present without trying to make it behave like something written today. That was what I appreciated most about it. This is still a World War II story, populated by people carrying the manners, assumptions, prejudices, and expectations of their...

Based on the festival material provided, the Puregold CinePanalo Film Festival 2026 has screenings scheduled from September 23 to October 4, 2026 , with films showing at Gateway Cineplex 18 in Araneta City and several Ayala Malls Cinemas in Metro Manila . This year's program includes seven full-length films, four student shorts blocks, Panorama shorts, and selected screenings with talkbacks. The full-length lineup jumps from political comedy to grief in Japan, supernatural romance, family drama, and a magical road trip involving John Arcilla and a carabao. Picking a schedule is going to take more thought than simply choosing whatever starts next. Puregold CinePanalo 2026 full-length films Wantawsan Joseph Abello's Wantawsan follows a poor father who receives cash from the newly elected mayor he supported. Later that day, he sets out to buy food for his son's birthday and ends up on a comic adventure that puts both his values and his wit to the test....

Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific is back in Metro Manila for eight performances at the Proscenium Theater in Rockwell, Makati, from September 12 to 20, 2026. Presented by the University of Santo Tomas Conservatory of Music in partnership with the College of Commerce and Business Administration, South Pacific: The Comeback stars Ciara Sotto as Nellie Forbush and Jose Vera Perez as Emile de Becque. Paolo O'Hara directs, with Daniel Bartolome leading the UST Symphony Orchestra. Update, September 14, 2026: I have since seen this production. Read my South Pacific review for the performances, the UST Symphony Orchestra, and the view from K26. The preview below records what I knew before seeing it. For me, the title comes with an old memory. I remember seeing a South Pacific programme at home when I was younger, but I don't remember actually watching the show. Repertory Philippines staged South Pacific in 1997, and that must have been the programme I ...