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...

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 ...