Look Ma: Your grandchildren are on stage!
April 22, 2002 | 12:00am
Last summer, I sent my children to the Tanghalang Pilipino Summer Acting Workshop, headed by Chris Millado. It was a great experience for them and truly advantageous to their personal growth.
Mica, at 19, had always shunned the stage in her youth. She never wanted to follow my footsteps in ballet, her reason being that she had seen all the Swan Lake, Giselle, and Nutcracker a person can see in a lifetime.
I let the likelihood rest with great relief. Had she decided to pirouette, I would have to watch them all over again, and I have seen enough ballets to last 10 lifetimes.
Raffy, who was 13, never saw me and my husband perform. We retired when he was a toddler, and so dance is as alien to him as E.T.
"Me? A dancer?" he had gasped at one point, "Mom! No way!"
Oh well… phew. How normal my kids are, their childhood encompassed by movies, malls, friends their age and camping trips instead of rehearsals, performances and all the intriguing quirks of the performing arts.
But if theater runs in your veins, it is bound to run in your children’s. I did feel queasy about the prospect of Mica and Raffy not savoring even a morsel of what has nourished our lives for two decades. That they might never taste the limelight, the applause, the intense satisfaction or grief over a performance, the strain, pressure and tension of it all was something close to tragic.
So off to summer acting workshop they went. After the projects at school, which helped develop their logical left brain, it was time to develop the right side, where visual-spatial concepts, creativity and intuition reign.
"If you two are not going to be dancers, you might try acting," I said. "It’s good for your self-esteem."
"And Mom, if we’re bad actors?" Mica asked.
"You’ll have to wallow in humility, and that’s good too!" I gulped.
I had never observed actors and thought it would be the best time to do so. How do they tick? In the years of heading Ballet Philippines and the CCP Dance School, I trained myself to look at dancers with impartial eyes, never allowing personal biases to influence decisions. I convinced Chris that I was interested in watching the proceedings as an artist and writer, not as stage mommy… so he allowed me to snoop.
Teenagers were in every nook and cranny of the CCP Little Theater, in groups, in pairs, or rehearsing solo. Professional and student directors were stooped over their scripts as they read the bodies in front with their perceptive third eyes. The youngsters, bewildered as they were, subconsciously allowed the energy of theater to charge their senses. The stir that surrounds an acting workshop is awesome, and Mica and Raffy found their niche in this vast domain.
My daughter, who believed she was tone deaf, bungling and ungraceful, was singing a difficult section in Les Miserables, and dancing to boot. She was always driven by fits of insecurity, as all young things are wont to, but there she was in Musical Theater with Cristine Maranan and Josie Roces Chavez.
In an excerpt from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by the young Joy Berriosa, for the first time in her life, Mica hugged the limelight as the lead, Helena. She wore a costume I knew was tearing her to pieces – a unitard – something I dreaded to wear myself. When she tried it on I bit my tongue to keep from saying, "Ugh! Poor you!"
During rehearsals she told me she didn’t have talent. "Who are you to say that?" I had replied, "God?" I found it funny that I myself once played God, saying those exact words about people (a bane of directors).
I was glad Joy was a perfectionist. In a dark corner, I watched how she wrenched emotion from Mica, who was appalled by the possibility of peeling off the layers she had carefully put on for self defense.
Good, Joy, I thought, extract every bit of life fluid from this tree. All artists are supposed to leak with genuine tears.
And on stage, Mica stood tall, statuesque, frightened. She spoke Shakespearean lines in heavy Tagalog as if they ran in her mind everyday. Gee, that one’s good. Sensitive, yes, Helena. That’s not my girl, but the forsaken lover of a young boy, weeping with passion and lacerating his heart with the iciness of a steel blade.
The shy young girl who metamorphosed into a woman last summer became a top dog because of theater. This year, again without experience, Mica ran for Batch Representative in her school and walked into the campaign with her knees trembling. She never believed for one moment she would make it, but having stood on stage and delivered lines before an audience helped a lot. Thanks to Shakespeare, she won as president with the most votes.
My son Raffy never had problems with making new friends and, after the first day of the workshop, he was texting several people with my cell phone. With him, I couldn’t help being a frightened mother. Before an audience, if Mica was shy, Raffy… well, will simply not exist. He mumbles, he stoops, he never mingled with a great number of people. He has never memorized more than three pages in his life, much less act on stage.
But under the tutelage of Sherry Lara in Teen Theater, I saw him become a fox, a moviegoer, a restaurant client, a drug pusher, all in one night and with ease as if he has been doing it all his life. Needless to say, all the teeners with him performed with imagination and without the least bit of qualm. They were cute, feisty, daring and innovative.
After that workshop, Raffy appeared in a leading role, as Aguinaldo, together with two other teeners, Derrick Gozos and Cyrsky Manfoste. They were surrounded by adult professionals in Tanghalang Pilipino’s production of El Camino Real. Immediately after his first acting workshop, it was sheer bravery for an inexperienced 12-year old to speak the lines of Nick Joaquin and portray an important general in our history. But that’s the magic of theater.
That summer two strangers kept coming home to me every night. It’s funny how you think you know your children and then you find yourself gaping at unfamiliar faces. Their voices sounded more grown-up, they stood nobler, their facial expressions suggested deeper thoughts. Well, memorizing Shakespeare in Tagalog can age people and so would playing a drug pusher, I suppose.
Parents, are your children too timid? Do they recoil from displaying their emotions and thoughts? Are you, yourselves, interested in learning new crafts as you wait for them this summer?
Head for the Cultural Center of the Philippines. This year’s term of the Summer Arts Conservatory, to be held May 7 to 26, is still accepting participants. Fees range from P2,500-P6,000. Workshops offered are:
• International Performance/ Workshop on Mask Dancing, Tuesday to Saturday, from 1 to 5 p.m., to be headed by Martinus Miroto;
• Production and Stage Management, which is an introduction to stage management and production systems for running professional theater productions, community theater ands student theater productions, Tuesday to Saturday, from 6 to 10 p.m., to be headed by Ed Murillo. Participants must at least be 16 years old and above;
• Acting II: Scenework covers advanced technique for actors and methods in physicalizing the role, which are worked out in individual and group scene studies. An acting recital caps the workshop. It will be held from Tuesday to Saturday, 6 to 10 p.m., with Herbie Go heading the workshop. Participants must be 18 years old and above and must have taken Beginning Acting and passed auditions;
• Acting in Musical Theater is a technique course for actors in musical theater. It includes intensive dance and voice technique to prepare actors for performances in musical theater productions. A program of musical excerpts cap the workshop. It will be held from Tuesday to Saturday, 2 to 5 p.m., and will be headed by Sweet Plantado. Participants must be 15 years old and above, and must have passed an audition; and,
• Acting for TV and Film, which is an acting workshop that will teach different acting techniques for TV or film and explore the physical, emotional and vocal ability for a creative performance in front of the camera. It will be held Tuesday to Saturday, from 2 to 5 p.m. It will be taught by members of the Directors’ Guild of the Philippines. Participants must at least be 15 years old and above.
Mica, at 19, had always shunned the stage in her youth. She never wanted to follow my footsteps in ballet, her reason being that she had seen all the Swan Lake, Giselle, and Nutcracker a person can see in a lifetime.
I let the likelihood rest with great relief. Had she decided to pirouette, I would have to watch them all over again, and I have seen enough ballets to last 10 lifetimes.
Raffy, who was 13, never saw me and my husband perform. We retired when he was a toddler, and so dance is as alien to him as E.T.
"Me? A dancer?" he had gasped at one point, "Mom! No way!"
Oh well… phew. How normal my kids are, their childhood encompassed by movies, malls, friends their age and camping trips instead of rehearsals, performances and all the intriguing quirks of the performing arts.
But if theater runs in your veins, it is bound to run in your children’s. I did feel queasy about the prospect of Mica and Raffy not savoring even a morsel of what has nourished our lives for two decades. That they might never taste the limelight, the applause, the intense satisfaction or grief over a performance, the strain, pressure and tension of it all was something close to tragic.
So off to summer acting workshop they went. After the projects at school, which helped develop their logical left brain, it was time to develop the right side, where visual-spatial concepts, creativity and intuition reign.
"If you two are not going to be dancers, you might try acting," I said. "It’s good for your self-esteem."
"And Mom, if we’re bad actors?" Mica asked.
"You’ll have to wallow in humility, and that’s good too!" I gulped.
I had never observed actors and thought it would be the best time to do so. How do they tick? In the years of heading Ballet Philippines and the CCP Dance School, I trained myself to look at dancers with impartial eyes, never allowing personal biases to influence decisions. I convinced Chris that I was interested in watching the proceedings as an artist and writer, not as stage mommy… so he allowed me to snoop.
Teenagers were in every nook and cranny of the CCP Little Theater, in groups, in pairs, or rehearsing solo. Professional and student directors were stooped over their scripts as they read the bodies in front with their perceptive third eyes. The youngsters, bewildered as they were, subconsciously allowed the energy of theater to charge their senses. The stir that surrounds an acting workshop is awesome, and Mica and Raffy found their niche in this vast domain.
My daughter, who believed she was tone deaf, bungling and ungraceful, was singing a difficult section in Les Miserables, and dancing to boot. She was always driven by fits of insecurity, as all young things are wont to, but there she was in Musical Theater with Cristine Maranan and Josie Roces Chavez.
In an excerpt from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by the young Joy Berriosa, for the first time in her life, Mica hugged the limelight as the lead, Helena. She wore a costume I knew was tearing her to pieces – a unitard – something I dreaded to wear myself. When she tried it on I bit my tongue to keep from saying, "Ugh! Poor you!"
During rehearsals she told me she didn’t have talent. "Who are you to say that?" I had replied, "God?" I found it funny that I myself once played God, saying those exact words about people (a bane of directors).
I was glad Joy was a perfectionist. In a dark corner, I watched how she wrenched emotion from Mica, who was appalled by the possibility of peeling off the layers she had carefully put on for self defense.
Good, Joy, I thought, extract every bit of life fluid from this tree. All artists are supposed to leak with genuine tears.
And on stage, Mica stood tall, statuesque, frightened. She spoke Shakespearean lines in heavy Tagalog as if they ran in her mind everyday. Gee, that one’s good. Sensitive, yes, Helena. That’s not my girl, but the forsaken lover of a young boy, weeping with passion and lacerating his heart with the iciness of a steel blade.
The shy young girl who metamorphosed into a woman last summer became a top dog because of theater. This year, again without experience, Mica ran for Batch Representative in her school and walked into the campaign with her knees trembling. She never believed for one moment she would make it, but having stood on stage and delivered lines before an audience helped a lot. Thanks to Shakespeare, she won as president with the most votes.
My son Raffy never had problems with making new friends and, after the first day of the workshop, he was texting several people with my cell phone. With him, I couldn’t help being a frightened mother. Before an audience, if Mica was shy, Raffy… well, will simply not exist. He mumbles, he stoops, he never mingled with a great number of people. He has never memorized more than three pages in his life, much less act on stage.
But under the tutelage of Sherry Lara in Teen Theater, I saw him become a fox, a moviegoer, a restaurant client, a drug pusher, all in one night and with ease as if he has been doing it all his life. Needless to say, all the teeners with him performed with imagination and without the least bit of qualm. They were cute, feisty, daring and innovative.
After that workshop, Raffy appeared in a leading role, as Aguinaldo, together with two other teeners, Derrick Gozos and Cyrsky Manfoste. They were surrounded by adult professionals in Tanghalang Pilipino’s production of El Camino Real. Immediately after his first acting workshop, it was sheer bravery for an inexperienced 12-year old to speak the lines of Nick Joaquin and portray an important general in our history. But that’s the magic of theater.
That summer two strangers kept coming home to me every night. It’s funny how you think you know your children and then you find yourself gaping at unfamiliar faces. Their voices sounded more grown-up, they stood nobler, their facial expressions suggested deeper thoughts. Well, memorizing Shakespeare in Tagalog can age people and so would playing a drug pusher, I suppose.
Head for the Cultural Center of the Philippines. This year’s term of the Summer Arts Conservatory, to be held May 7 to 26, is still accepting participants. Fees range from P2,500-P6,000. Workshops offered are:
• International Performance/ Workshop on Mask Dancing, Tuesday to Saturday, from 1 to 5 p.m., to be headed by Martinus Miroto;
• Production and Stage Management, which is an introduction to stage management and production systems for running professional theater productions, community theater ands student theater productions, Tuesday to Saturday, from 6 to 10 p.m., to be headed by Ed Murillo. Participants must at least be 16 years old and above;
• Acting II: Scenework covers advanced technique for actors and methods in physicalizing the role, which are worked out in individual and group scene studies. An acting recital caps the workshop. It will be held from Tuesday to Saturday, 6 to 10 p.m., with Herbie Go heading the workshop. Participants must be 18 years old and above and must have taken Beginning Acting and passed auditions;
• Acting in Musical Theater is a technique course for actors in musical theater. It includes intensive dance and voice technique to prepare actors for performances in musical theater productions. A program of musical excerpts cap the workshop. It will be held from Tuesday to Saturday, 2 to 5 p.m., and will be headed by Sweet Plantado. Participants must be 15 years old and above, and must have passed an audition; and,
• Acting for TV and Film, which is an acting workshop that will teach different acting techniques for TV or film and explore the physical, emotional and vocal ability for a creative performance in front of the camera. It will be held Tuesday to Saturday, from 2 to 5 p.m. It will be taught by members of the Directors’ Guild of the Philippines. Participants must at least be 15 years old and above.
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