The Philippine Stagers Foundation: A brief history

          By JC Nigado  

THE Philippine Stagers Foundation (PSF or PhilStagers) is a trailblazing and critically acclaimed theater company, duly organized and registered under the laws of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was founded in 2002 by Atty. Vince M. Tañada, writer and director, Jeffrey T. Ambrosio, interior and set designer, and Hans Christian H. Lim,  graphics designer and computer analyst.

            Even at the outset, the PSF saw and felt the need not only to professionalize community/campus-based theater  but  also  to transform Philippine theater  in general, by bringing the stage to as many people as possible, especially the students and the masses nationwide. In less than a decade, the PSF has realized and achieved that objective when its shows went on national tour, growing by leaps and bounds, and breaking theater box-office records everywhere in the country, with (not) a little help from some friends in the Department of Education, private and public schools, public officials and others who believe in the PSF talent and advocacy. And it’s no mean feat to maintain it in an artists’ company of 60 or more.

            Of course, there’s the PSF brand of aggressive and massive marketing and always putting up a real good performance any old time. In a sense, the headmaster Vince Tañada has found a Formula of stage success that has sent all pretenders of so-called People’s Theater falling by the wayside, grasping green with envy.

            Indeed, what the ancient state-sponsored culture arms and other subsidized bodies have failed to do in almost half a century of continuous annual funding and government

(plus private) support, the PSF has succeeded almost all by its lonesome, from its humble beginnings in Balic-balic, Sampaloc, Manila, a place plain and simple and very unlikely, from the view of the standard rule of the culturati and literati emperors at the center.

            Well, the shadow clothing has been shed, in a manner of speaking, and nowadays, the PSF’s hands are full, “keep(ing) off envy’s stinging,/ And find(ing)/ What wind/ Serves to advance the honest mind.” John Donne (1572-1631), England’s metaphysical poet, wrote these lines more than 400 years ago but they still sound fresh and current, ringing loud and clear, in the halls and walls of our technology existence.

            As Don Quixote’s Cervantes would say, “Hunger is the best sauce.”

And cultural workers on welfare, subsisting on a steady diet of dole outs and public alms, sans aim and ambition to be self-sustaining and free, know no hunger, to really get the drift.

            In all, the PSF has mounted stage plays, ranging theater from the classics (“Troy Avenue”) to the biblical (“O’ Moises”) to the historical (“Mactan 1521,” “Filipinas 1941”) to the biographical (“Namaste… Ang Makulay na Buhay ni Gandhi,” ”Bonifacio : Isang Sarswela,”

“Joe :A Filipino Rock’sical”) to the religious (“Enzo… Santo,” “San Vicente, A Zarzuela”) to the topical (“#popepular: Pa’no Kung Pinoy si Kiko?”) and to the radically political “Desaparecidos,” the forerunner of “Katips: Ang mga Bagong Katipunero.”

            Like Robert Frost (1874-1963), the American Naturalist, we will continue to take the road less traveled, to make all the difference. In poetry, in theater, on the streets, in the sky, under the sea, or elsewhere everyone is a legitimate performer of Life, all life as we know it. With more than 500 shows nationwide in a season of nine months, who can argue with such?

            One Wonder of the World said it ages ago: ”All the world’s a stage…”

            And the Philippine Stagers Foundation is here to stay.

            Time to hit the boards, folks!

            (JC NIGADO)