Initiative offers reduced tickets for 'Here Lies Love' during Filipino American HIstory Month

Jose Llana plays Ferdinand Marcos in 'Here Lies Love.'

In partnership with The Gold House and The Asian American Foundation, the producers of Here Lies Love have launched an initiative to make tickets more affordable for students frontline workers and community advocates for the rest of October, Filipino American Heritage Month.

The initiative, "Democracy In Action," hopes to raise $1 million in tax deductible donations to subsidize 33% on tickets to the show during October. Normal ticket prices begin at $56 for balcony seats.

“We are extremely proud of this initiative and grateful to our colleagues at Gold House and TAAF (The Asian American Foundation) for recognizing the unique opportunity Here Lies Love creates to broaden the demographics of Broadway audiences,” said the show’s producers Jose Antonio Vargas, Patrick Catullo, Diana DiMenna, Clint Ramos, Kevin Connor and Hal Luftig. 

“This fund will work alongside the creatives and storytellers striving to diversify the narratives offered on our stages,” they said in a statement.

Attendees supported by the effort include high school and college students, health care, service and municipal workers, community centers and other nonprofits. 

 FYI: Groups eligible to apply for blocks of tickets  can visit                 www.HereLiesLoveBroadway.com/DIATI.

“The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) is proud to partner with the producers of Here Lies Love to make Broadway accessible to all audiences,” said Norman Chen, CEO of TAAF. “When authentic stories like these take space on a stage as big as Broadway, they have the power to impact the hearts and minds of people everywhere.”

The history-making musical from Tony-award winning David Byrne and Fatboy Slim took 10 years to get on Broadway.

The musical, the first to feature an all-Filipino cast on Broadway, follows the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, the wife of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, from the bright lights of New York discoes to the darkness of the conjugal dictatorship when the couple ruled the Philippines for 20 years.

The production immerses the audience into the show where the theater-goers are taken for a ride as they are transformed from giddy fans to angry protestors.

It stars Broadway veterans Arielle Jacobs (Alladin) as Imelda Marcos, Jose Lllana (The King and I) as Ferdinand Marcos, Conrad Rocamora (How to Get Away With Murder, Soft Power) as Benigno Aquino and an all-Filipino ensemble.

“With Broadway’s first all-Filipino cast, Here Lies Love provides an unprecedented immersive opportunity to acknowledge, critique and progress beyond our own histories,” says Bing Chen, CEO and co-founder of Gold House. “Democracy in Action will provide students and community members an impactful opportunity to learn more about that history through the power of art.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me at Threads.net/eduardodiok, @DioknoEd on Twitter or at the  blog Views From the Edge.

Asian Americans cast in national touring company of 'Hamilton'

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The HamilAsians, from left: Shoba Narayan, Joseph Morales and Marcus Choi.

ASAM NEWS

ASIAN/AMERICAN actors Joseph Morales, Shoba Narayan, and Marcus Choi are filling leading roles in the second national tour of the hit musical Hamilton.

Morales, who is Hawaiian, will star as Alexander Hamilton in the hip-hop musical beginning in Seattle on February 6; he currently plays the alternate of Alexander Hamilton in the musical’s Chicago production alongside Asian/Americans Ari Asfar and Jin Ha. Morales has previously performed in Bollywood-themed Broadway musical Bombay Dreams and starred in Asian American theatre company East West Players’ production of The Who’s Tommy.

Narayan will be playing Eliza Hamilton, the musical’s leading female role, which was originated by Chinese/American actress Phillipa Soo. Naryan recently starred in Broadway musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. According to Playbill, Naryan was the first South Asian woman playing a principal role on Broadway in over 10 years.

RELATED: Diversity increases on Broadway, but not for Asians

“This is for the women, the immigrants, the minorities that wake up every morning and push to defy the odds, to dream big, and to not throw away their shot,” Narayan wrote in an Instagram post.

Choi will be playing George Washington, a prominent supporting role. The role has never been played by an Asian/American man. Choi has previously performed alongside Asian/American casts in musicals such as Flower Drum Song, Allegiance, and Miss Saigon.

“I can’t help but feel like it’s a big win for our community,” Choi told Backstage Pass with Lia Chang. “Asian Americans are the most under represented ethnic group in entertainment and I am so grateful to Hamilton for taking the chance and casting Asians in principal roles for this tour.”

The theatre industry has been criticized for providing little representation for Asian American performers. According to The Atlantic, Hamilton intentionally casts people of color in portrayals of white historical figures to reflect the ethnic diversity of present-day America.

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Imelda Marcos' story is made for theater

When the Marcoses were in power in the Philippines, they banned the musical "Evita" because the parallels to the dual dictatorship was too obvious. It was perhaps inevitable that Imelda's rags-to-riches story - with her penchant for memorable quotes, infamous shoe collection, a reputed affair with actor George Hamilton and a love for the glamor and spotlight - end up on the Broadway stage.

"Here Lies Love" returned to Broadway July 9 for an open-ended run after garnering rave reviews last year.

Even with the uncertain future of George Takei's "Allegiance" and the too-short-of-a-run of the Bruce Lee musical, which starred Filipino-American martial artist/dancer Cole Horibe, Asian dancers and singers will have more than their normally limited number of opportunities to portray Asians in revivals of Miss Saigon and The King and I. Slowly, in little baby steps, producers are starting to cast Asians in roles that don't specifically call for an Asian actor.

Plans are afoot to put up productions of the Marcos musical in London and San Francisco. I can't wait when it comes to San Francisco, which was the center of anti-Marcos activities in the U.S. during the 21 year reign of the dictator.

Deep in the middle of the anti-Marcos movement in the U.S. was the Philippine News, where I honed my journalistic chops as a layout artist, proofreader, columnist, reporter and editor. Led by fiery editor and publisher Alex Esclamado, some of the stories that we printed about the despots'  regime seemed so fantastical that mainstream media couldn't believe it and as a result, the PhilNews suffered a credibility problem it could never overcome.

However, when the dictatorship fell, and the horrors of that rule were fully exposed, and western reporters began reporting on the Philippines dictatorship, especially by Phil Bronstein with the San Francisco Examiner -- only then did the U.S. media realize that things were even worst than what was reported by PhilNews. Reporting by US media, usually using Esclamdo's contacts and sources, eventually put pressure on the Marcoses.

Many of the people who walked in picket lines, wrote letters, made films, wrote scathing commentaries and risked their businesses, reputations and lives working against the dictator still live in the Bay Area. It will be interesting to see if they join the audience to sing along or dance with Imelda and Ferdinand in the highly  interactive production where the audience become part of the story. At various times during the show they are fellow nightclub dancers, Filipino voters and finally they become the masses that became the "People Power" that dethroned the dual dictators.

The production wanted to move into a mainstream theater but the physical requirements of the show, ie. no seats in the orchestra section, precluded any of the traditional venues. And that's a problem the show will have when it moves to London in October. Unfortunately, there are not many venues in SF that can accommodate the production. (How about the vacant Palace of Fine Arts? Imelda would love the irony of finally winding up in a palace again.)

The musical is NOT an ode to the dictatorship. It is NOT a history lesson. It is a musical that offers an unapologetic look back at an era in the Philippines that is still having repercussions on the political  scene. 

We may not have brought down the final curtain on the Marcos story. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos' son, Bong Bong, has been elected President of the Philippines in 2022 after extensive rewriting of history and the collective memory loss of voters, many who were born after the reign of the conjugal dictatorship.

Editor's Note: Having not seen the musical, I can't give a review, but here is a sampling of reviews from the early production.

Here's a review from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/06/18/here-lies-good-stuff/

And a review from the Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/theater/review-here-lies-love-is-a-swirling-dynamic-first-ladys-biography-to-a-disco-beat/