TGIF FEATURE: 'Here Lies Love' coming to the West Coast

Ruthie Ann Miles, center, won a Tony for her role as Imelda Marcos in the Broadway production of Here Lies Love.

GET READY TO PAR-TEE! The award-winning musical about the rise and fall of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos will be coming to the West Coast.

Here Lies Love will be playing in Seattle followed by San Francisco in 2017 after an extensive run in London and leaving its Broadway home in 2014.

Start saving up your money. The tickets for these shows are going to cost a pretty penny.

Exact dates and venues will be announced later.

The David Byrne and Fatboy Slim production requires a theater that allows the audience to stand throughout the 90-minute show. The disco-theme musical turns the space into a nightclub, the streets of Manila and a beauty contest stage and the audience transforms into the witnesses, protestors or nightclub revelers as the line between the performers and audience blurs.

It's Evita in a disco and the audience becomes part of the production.

RELATED: Imelda Marcos's story is made for theater

In New York and London, the show received rave reviews garnering accolades for its stars. It won a 2015 Tony Award for Love's first Imelda portrayed by Ruthie Ann Miles.

In Seattle the show will be part of the Seattle Repertory Theatre's 2016-2017 season. It was there that Marcos henchmen killed two Filipino/American union activists. Gene Viennese and Silme Domingo.

It will be interesting to see how the Here Lies Love is received in San Francisco as part of the American Conservatory Theatre's season. The San Francisco Bay Area was the center of the anti-Marcos expatriate movement during the 20-year reign of the Philippines' conjugal dictatorship.

I suspect there will be a few tears at the eulogy of Benign Aquino, a Marcos rival assassinated on the airport tarmac upon his return to Manila from San Francisco. And a few cheers when the Marcoses get on the plane to their Hawaiian exile.

For more news about Asian/Americans & Pacific Islanders, read AsAm News.

Long live the "King;" 2 "kings" take over Broadway role

Filipino American Jose Llana will star in The King and I Broadway musical.

ONE KING exits, two will take his place.

As Ken Watanabe leaves the Broadway productionl of "The King and I"  to fulfill a motion picture commitment, two more Asian/American actors will take over the role, originally  made famous by Yul Brynner.

Last night, Broadway vet Jose Llana joined Tony winners Kelli O’Hara and Ruthie Ann Miles (his Imelda from Here Lies Love) to play the role of the King of Siam for a limited 11-week engagement through Sept. 27, in Lincoln Center Theater’s Tony Award-winning revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I, based on the book "Anna and the King of Siam."

After Llana's summer stint, Hoon Lee from the television series Banshee will star as the king of Siam.

Jose Llana starred as Philippines' President Marcos in the musical Here Lies Love at the Public Theater, for which he received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination. This production is currently on world tour after closing in New York last January.

Jose Llana, left, reunites with Ruthie Ann Miles and Conrad Ricamora,
all three of whom were in the Here Lies Love musical.

Joining the King production  he will be reunited with Here Lies Love castmates Ruthie Ann Miles, who played Imelda Marcos and Conrad Ricamora, who played Ninoy Aquino, Marcos' rival in love and politics.

Llana's other notable Broadway credits include Wonderland, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Flower Drum Song, Rent, Streetcorner Symphony, and the 1996 production of The King and I, in which he made his Broadway debut in the role of Lun Tha at the age of 19. 

His film and television credits include Hitch and “Sex and the City.” He is an advocate for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Broadway Impact for Marriage Equality, and several other charities.

RELATED: Imelda's story is made for theater

Llana's parents immigrated to the U.S. to flee the Philippines dictatorship of strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

"Playing Marcos has been nothing short of life-changing and life-affirming as a Filipino-American," Llana told an interviewer. "I never realized how much I took for granted how my parents educated my sister and me about martial law in the Philippines. The truth is not all Filipino-American kids grow up with any knowledge of it, let alone any Americans do. I’m most proud that our show inspires people to go home and Google or Wikipedia the Philippines or martial law and that they learn a little something more about our history and culture than those damn shoes Imelda hoarded with stolen money."

Hoon Lee will join the cast after he finishes up taping the latest season of the television hit series Banshee, in which he plays the bad-ass Job, a cross-dressing computer hacker. His previous Broadway credits include Urinetown The Musical, Flower Drum Song and Pacific Overtures.

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Hollywood take note: Broadway musicals are not afraid of featuring Asian artists in lead roles

Vanessa Hudges as Gigi

A LITTLE BIT of history will be made this fall when Lea Salonga takes the stage in Allegiance, the musical created by actor George Takei. Along with Vanessa Hudgens in Gigi and most of the cast of Here Lies Love, that could possibly be the largest number of Filipino Americans under Broadway's bright lights at the same time.

Throw in the revival of "The King and I" and its cast and it would appear that Broadway is better than Hollywood in casting Asians.

Granted, that's still not a whole lot, but it's better than a couple of years ago when everyone was bemoaning the fact that Asians couldn't get cast on Broadway.

It helps that two of the productions - Here Lies Love about Imelda Marcos and her dictator husband Ferdinand Marcos, and Allegiance about the life in the internment camps for Japanese Americans during WW II - are about Asians so it makes sense that the producers seek Asian artists.

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Hudgens, who is half Filipino, is doing what can perhaps be described as a reverse yellow-face by playing the lead character Gigi, a French girl, in a remake of the musical that introduced Leslie Caron to American audiences. Gigi premiered yesterday, March 19.

She is perhaps best known for the High School Musical franchise where she sang and danced through the motion pictures. I forget how many of the pre-Glee movies were made.

Here Lies Love tells the story of the Philippines Conjugal Dictatorship, from the time Imelda Marcos was a beauty queen to the downfall of the ruling couple. Everyone with a passing knowledge of that era knows that Imelda loved to party and loved to sing, which makes perfect fodder for this interactive musical which won rave reviews. The musical has a sister production that just opened in London. I can't wait until it comes to the West Coast, the home base of both critics and supporters of the Marcoses. Jaygee Macapugay plays the role of Imelda Marcos in "Here Lies Love." Playing Ferdinand Marcos is Jose Llana.

Macapugay takes over for Ruthie Ann Miles, the Hawaiian-born Korean singer who won the "Best Actress In A Musical" for her portrayal of the Philippines former first lady. Miles has moved over to "The King and I" where she plays Lady Thiang.

Allegiance has been waiting in the wings for its Broadway debut for almost two years after its debut in Los Angeles. Created by actor George Takei, whose family was interned in those infamous internment camps for Japanese Americans on the West Coast. It finally found a theater and will open in the fall.

The Manila-raised Lea Salonga, who has made quite a name for herself on Broadway since her American debut in Miss Saigon, will reprise the role she had in the Los Angeles production the WWII dramatic musical as the wife of Sam Kimura, played by Takei.

Hollywood can learn a few things from their Broadway counterparts. 

Do Asian theme shows attract audiences. Yes!

Do nonAsians care if the casts are Asian? No!

Do Asian artists have talent? Yes!

All you need are relatable strong or complicated characters and a compelling storyline. It helps if you step away from the stereotypes, too. As these musicals prove, the audience will come. That's entertainment!

RELATED:Why the Oscar's acting nominees are all whiteThe Oscar for Best Caucasian goes to ....

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