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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

The FEU Theater Guild is opening its 93rd season with MORYON , a Filipino adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s Mother Sauvage that moves the story to Japanese-occupied Marinduque and places the Moriones tradition at the center of its world. Written and directed by Dudz Teraña, MORYON runs at the FEU Center for the Arts Studio from October 1 to November 28, 2026 , with performances scheduled throughout the two-month run. It is a fascinating choice of setting for a story built around grief, violence and the complicated line between justice and revenge. MORYON takes place on Holy Thursday in Mogpog, Marinduque, during the Japanese occupation, while the Moriones tradition continues around its characters and masked devotees take to the streets in acts of faith and penance even as war changes the lives of the people living behind those traditions. At the center of the play is Caridad, a mother waiting for her son Joaquin. Joaquin is a young guerrilla who wants t...

Update, September 14, 2026: The official Puregold Teatro Panalo application form is no longer accepting entries. The original deadline was September 11, 2026, at 11:59 PM. This article preserves the original call for the planned 2027 festival. The original announcement called for 12 one-act works: eight straight plays and four musicals. It offered each selected playwright a ₱100,000 fee and full production support, including cast and crew fees. The festival was planned for February to March 2027, with no venue named in that announcement. Who could submit Amateur and professional playwrights aged 18 and above could submit. The call welcomed comedy, drama, experimental work, musical theater, and other approaches. The call accepted scripts in English or any Filipino language. Regional-language entries required an English translation. Each playwright could submit up to two entries, with only one work per applicant eligible for selection. Selection ...

Westerberg High is coming to Manila, and a Filipina will be at the center of it. Heathers the Musical will make its Philippine debut at The Theatre at Solaire from January 21 to February 7, 2027 , with Filipina performer Gerardine Sacdalan leading the international cast as Veronica Sawyer. Sacdalan arrives with the international company following the production's London season and UK and Ireland tour. Gerardine Sacdalan in Heathers the Musical. Photo by Pamela Raith. A Filipina Veronica Sawyer Sacdalan steps into one of contemporary musical theater's most recognizable young roles after previously leading the UK tour of & Juliet as Juliet, a performance that earned her a WhatsOnStage Award nomination for Best Professional Debut. She is joined by Louis Hearsey as Jason “J.D.” Dean, Liberty Stottor as Heather Chandler, Jessica Ibadin as Heather Duke, and Lou Henry as Heather McNamara. Gerardine Sacdalan and Louis Hea...

Production images from the Ambon, Ulan, Baha media release. No photographer credit appears in the available materials. Ambon, Ulan, Baha was already talking about deforestation, flooding, and the cost of unchecked development in the 1970s. Almost 50 years later, it is heading back to the Metropolitan Theater. Frank G. Rivera's ethno-pop-rock zarzuela will be staged at the MET in Manila on September 26 and 27, 2026. CJ Navato and Thea Astley play Nonoy and Inday, with Anton Juan, Rendell Sanchez, Nazer Salcedo, Onyl Torres, Shermaine Santiago, and Sweet Buchanan also in the cast. The 2026 staging is presented by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Metropolitan Theater, and produced by Pixel Art Media Production Co. This is not a newly written environmental story borrowing an old setting. The material itself goes back nearly five decades. The problem at its center never really left. The work started as Kaingin in 1976, part of MSU...