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)
