Homegrown at the dome: Filipino musical makes its debut

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This article was published 09/11/2023 (936 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidociousness and homegrown Filipino pride will share the spotlight next season at Rainbow Stage, the outdoor musical theatre company announced this week.

Rainbow’s 2024 season, the company’s 70th, will open in June with the long-awaited world première of local actor and choreographer Joseph Sevillo’s all-Filipino musical Ma-Buhay!, followed by a production in August of Mary Poppins: The Broadway Musical.

Mary Poppins enjoyed a memorable run in 2013 under the dome in Kildonan Park, while Ma-Buhay! — the first musical in the company’s history to be commissioned and developed — has been in the works since 2018, when then-newly installed artistic director Carson Nattrass made a callout for original, Manitoban-made works of musical theatre.

Sevillo — who made his professional stage debut at 13 in the 1997 Rainbow Stage production of South Pacific — approached Nattrass to let him know he had an idea for a musical showcase for Winnipeg’s Filipino community.

The AD gave Sevillo the OK.

“He had never written a musical before, but I had never been an artistic director before either, so the last five years, we have been growing together in a shared vision to bring (Joseph’s) musical Ma-Buhay! to Rainbow Stage,” a teary-eyed Nattrass told the crowd at the Prairie’s Edge restaurant in Kildonan Park.

Growing up, Sevillo said he struggled to see any Filipino characters depicted in mainstream performing arts. He explained to Nattrass he wanted to tell a story that welcomed Filipino audiences and non-Filipino audiences alike, eventually choosing a Tagalog meaning “welcome” as the show’s title.

Beginning with a public workshop reading five years ago at the Prairie Theatre Exchange’s Festival of New Works and continuing on through four more workshops, Ma-Buhay! has already engaged over 100 Filipino actors, choreographers and dancers since its inception. A workshop version at this summer’s Winnipeg Fringe Festival, featuring several original song-and-dance numbers, earned rave reviews and frequently sold out the Tom Hendry Warehouse.

The Fringe workshop was a turning point for Ma-Buhay!, giving Sevillo and the creative team significant momentum and the Rainbow Stage board the confidence the show could draw an audience to the Kildonan Park theatre.

Sevillo, who has appeared in 14 Rainbow Stage productions since his debut 26 years ago, knew Ma-Buhay! would eventually run on the stage where his career began, but only when he received the good news last month did any doubt dissipate.

“It wasn’t a surprise, but there was a sense of relief, a confirmation that all this hard work was going to pay off after five years and that nothing was going to get in the way. No COVID, no political agendas, nothing. It was just going to happen,” he said, wearing a white barong tagalog, a traditional shirt worn during milestone events.

The production will be dedicated to the memory of his late mother, Teresita, he said.

“It’s a dream come true.”

As a preview of the music to come, singers Rochelle Kives and Brady Barrientos, who starred in the Fringe production, performed a pair of original songs from Ma-Buhay! before travelling across the pond to England for a jolly ‘oliday with Mary.

Ma-Buhay! will run from June 27 through July 14, 2024, while Mary Poppins, adapted from the 1963 movie and the books by P.L. Travers, will fly from Aug. 15 through Sept. 1.

Neither show has been cast, with general auditions for the season taking place on Nov. 16 and 17 at the Crescent Fort Rouge United Church. General auditions are open to any artist who will be 15 years or older as of May 27. More information is available at rainbowstage.ca.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com