Words and images Tanghalang Pilipino
Editing Patricia Herbolario and the Kanto team
Reliving the words of a ‘warrior’ poet. Children enraptured by the dance of light amidst grief. A corrupt king watches his kingdom fracture around him. Women answering the call for freedom to the high-octane beat of P-pop music. When the curtain rises on Tanghalang Pilipino’s 40th theater season this weekend, what awaits audiences is both reckoning and celebration.
Founded in 1987 as the resident theater company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Tanghalang Pilipino has spent nearly four decades building what is arguably the most rigorous institutional home for Filipino theater in the country. Under founding artistic director Nonon Padilla, and sustained through the tenures of Herbert Go, Dennis Marasigan, and current artistic director Fernando C. Josef, the company has mounted over 274 full productions across 39 seasons; original Filipino works, translations, adaptations, and intercultural collaborations, brought to life by the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company, a core ensemble whose full-time training is subsidized by the company itself. Many of those actors are now making their marks in Philippine film, television, and commercial performance, rigorously trained and released into a culture that needs them.
The 40th season carries the theme Past Forward, a timely inquiry on how a theater company can honor what it has built without being trapped by it, even as the weight of history presses into a present in constant flux. The season’s four productions answer this central question differently, but together, they make a case for what Philippine theater can evolve into.
Let’s Go to the South
July 10 and 11, 2026
TP40 opens in July with Farewell, Let’s Go to the South, a one-weekend intercultural collaboration between Assignment Theater of Taiwan, Space Theater of Korea, and Tanghalang Pilipino. Written and directed by Chung Chiao, the work sits with the final reflections of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara and South Korean labor activist Jeon Tae-il through Asian bodies, poetic language, and the avant-garde sounds of a live cello, unfolding as a meditation on conviction, memory, and the cost of resistance. For the Philippine leg of this Asian tour, TP actors bring to life the world of Filipino revolutionary poet Emmanuel “Eman” Lacaba through selections from his Salvaged Poems, his words recovered from the dictatorship that tried to silence them, sharing a stage with Guevara and Jeon Tae-il in a pairing that announces the season’s intentions early.
Farewell, Let’s Go to the South runs July 10 and 11, 2026, at 7:00 pm at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez, Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex, Pasay City. Featuring Chung Chiao, Fu Jung, Miae Hwang, Wai Kit Grad Leung, Sung-Ho Jan, Sakamoto Hiromichi, Fernando “Nanding” Josef, and Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan.
Sayaw ng mga Ilaw
September 18 to October 11, 2026
September brings Sayaw ng mga Ilaw, Juan Ekis’ stage adaptation of Cheeno Marlo Sayuno’s beloved children’s short story, directed by Jonathan P. Tadioan with music by Krina Cayabyab. Young Laya dreams of learning the traditional Pandanggo dance alongside her older sister, Kaya. One day, their father, a construction worker at the Manila Film Center, fails to come home. Plunging the family into grief and uncertainty, the show ruminates on the role of art and tradition in the process of moving on. A movement-based theater piece for younger audiences, it is perhaps the season’s softest production, and its most necessary, a reminder that the future we are working toward has children in it. Featuring Wincess Jem Yana and Annica Co as Laya (alternates), Noel Rayos, Shiela Valderrama, and the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company.
Sayaw ng mga Ilaw runs from September 18 to October 11, 2026, at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez, Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex, Pasay City. The show runs on Fridays (8:00 PM), Saturdays (3:00 PM, 8:00 PM), and Sundays (3:00 PM)
Gregoria Lakambini: A Pinay Pop Musical
November 13 to November 29, 2026
November brings back the widely popular Gregoria Lakambini: A Pinay Pop Musical, written by Nicanor Tiongson and Eljay Castro Deldoc, directed and co-choreographed by Delphine Buencamino, with music by Nica Del Rosario, Matthew Chang, and FlipMusic Productions, Inc. Following successful runs in 2025 and 2026 and eight nominations at the 16th Philstage Gawad Buhay Awards, including Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Ensemble Performance, the production returns to tell the story of Gregoria de Jesus, charting her path from spirited young woman in Caloocan to Lakambini of the Katipunan, standing alongside Andres Bonifacio in both love and revolution, her story delivered at full volume through the sound and energy of a P-pop girl group. Featuring Marynor Madamesila as Gregoria de Jesus and the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company.
Gregoria Lakambini: A Pinay Pop Musical runs through November 13 to November 29, 2026, with shows on Thursdays (8:00 PM), Fridays (8:00 PM), Saturdays (3:00 PM, 8:00 PM), and Sundays (3:00 PM), at the Proscenium Theatre, Rockwell Center, Makati City.
Ricardo Segundo
February 19 to March 21, 2027
The season closes in 2027 with Ricardo Segundo, Guelan Varela-Luarca’s Filipino translation and direction of Shakespeare’s Richard II, following a king whose corruption, vindictiveness, and incompetence fracture his kingdom and set off a fierce struggle for legitimacy. Written in 1595, the play’s political drama is further amplified and tailored to local audiences through the use of Filipino music; for the media preview, a chilling rendition by the cast of rock band Bamboo’s Hallelujah provided the emotional gravity that awaits viewers come February 2027.
Featuring Marco Viaña as Haring Ricardo II, Fernando “Nanding” Josef, Jonathan Tadioan, Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan, Earvin Estioco, Anya Evangelista, Gelo Molina, Mark Lorenz Rey, and the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company.
Ricardo Segundo will show at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez, Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex, Pasay City, from February 19, 2027, through March 21, 2027, with shows on Fridays (8:00 PM), Saturdays (3:00 PM, 8:00 PM), and Sundays (3:00 PM).
The season culminates in May 2027 with TP40: Life Begins!, a 40th-anniversary concert to be staged at the newly-renovated CCP Main Theater, celebrating the playwrights, directors, actors, designers, and theater makers who have shaped four decades of Philippine theater. More details to follow!
Theater has always been where a community goes to see itself, a mirror that reveals our current values and emotions, but also our wants and deepest desires. If Tanghalang Pilipino’s Past Forward preview and programming is any indication, our stewards of the stage are keeping the mirror as clean as they can, so as to provide audiences a timely reminder of what the past and its lessons are actually for: to be handed forward, still warm, to whoever needs it next.
Season pass subscriptions are available for PHP 6,499 from this link. Individual show tickets are also available starting at P1,500. Visit and follow Tanghalang Pilipino on Facebook for more updates. •
