ABOUT THE COMPANY
It is the only theater company that never ceases to teach and train young, deserving and passionate actors. REP produces western plays – both modern and the classics – non-stop throughout the year except for the summer months when attention turns to Performing Arts workshops and their corresponding showcase productions, to further educate deserving students. To this date it has staged 461 productions – each running from 12 to 60 performances. One of its recent musical productions, LES MISERABLES, was called the best musical and perhaps the best musical ever in this country.
At present REP has one regular season of three plays. Classics, comedies, dramas and sometimes a small scale musical are a regular part of each season. The rest of the year is taken up by a musical for young audiences, and time permitting, a big Broadway musical production. Recently REP has taken to creating at least one or two local, original plays in every season, putting it in a Philippine setting, although all the plays are performed in English.
The children are not forgotten. The REP THEATER FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES, now on its 30th year, stages professional productions of classic children’s musicals on weekends and during the week for schools. Children from as far as Tarlac are bussed in to watch our shows. Which are performed at staggeringly low ticket prices to make it affordable for the students. Ms. Joy Virata is its Founder and Artistic Director.
REP sustains a summer Performing Arts Workshop attended by more than 200 children and adults each, many of whom are scholars.
But Repertory Philippines is not just a production outfit. It has also been the best-known training ground for actors having produced the likes of Lea Salonga who first appeared with REP when she was six years old and then played the lead in ANNIE when she was eight. She went on to play the lead in Cameron Mackintosh’s MISS SAIGON, winning awards in both London and New York for her performance and since then has been an international performer. Monique Wilson, another “Rep tot”, also starred in the same production and is at present based in Manila and travels the world over where she continues to pursue her
career. The late Junix Inocian, Jonjon Briones, Red Concepcion, Cocoy Laurel, Maya Barredo, and Gia Macuja are just a few of others numbering about 40 who have appeared and are still appearing in international productions. REP continues to be the source of acting talent both in the Philippines and abroad.
To carry out its vision, REP maintains a full-time support staff of 10. Its present address is at Ecoville Executive Townhomes in Makati City. It began using a 200-seat theater on the 12th floor of the Insular Life Building on Ayala Avenue, moved to a 500-seat theater at the Shangri-la Plaza Mall which it named the William J. Shaw Theater, and then inaugurated and moved into the Carlos P. Romulo 400-seat theater at the RCBC Plaza. Its current home for the last twenty years has been at Onstage, Greenbelt 1. Unfortunately, Greenbelt 1 will be demolished by the Ayalas in 2024 to make way for a new tower of shops, offices and residences. REP is temporarily moving back to the RCBC Plaza for its 87 th Season 2024. At present it is still searching for a new home.
REP’s current President is MINDY BARREDO PEREZ-RUBIO.
Ms. Zeneida Amador, in an article she wrote profiling her company said: “Because REP is a non-stock, not-for profit foundation, it has never stinted in giving each production the best it has been able to. The money it makes from box-office sales and sponsorship grants have been ploughed back to benefit actors and support struggling performers, as well as into production budgets to give each presentation the taste, the look and the sophistication that cosmopolites have become used to. Its sense of pride about one of the country’s products renders it at all times unable to settle for mediocrity and to daily reach for excellence.” Additionally, by the regularity of its productions, REP is continuing its furtherance of the aims of art. That is to make people more sensitive, more aware, more ethical in their dealing with others, more compassionate and more giving.