Manila - Misc Pics . . . FINALLY!

OK, so this is our cast on the bus on the way to rehearsal:




This is our cast realizing they apparently didn't pose hard enough for the first photo op on the bus to rehearsal:



This is everyone turning their head away from me just as I tried to take a picture (can you tell I'm really unused to taking pics?):



This is my first posed photo with new friend Sheila Valderrama-Martinez, exquisite beauty, beautiful singer/dancer, Cinderella u/s, and the last photo I'll ever put myself in if everyone keeps looking that good at rehearsal (it's REHEARSAL, you're SUPPOSED to look as haggard as I do, people!):



This is a pic of the Cultural Arts Center, our performance space, taken from a moving vehicle. (Again, not good at taking pics, yet, OK?) I've also recently taken some cute ones at rehearsal - I'm getting better! - but I'll have to share those next time, they're not on my computer, yet.

Manila - Week 4 Update

Somehow last week got away from me without a post, so here's an extra-long one to make up for it.

I took a tour of Intramuros last week, which was Manila's city center for about 500 years until WWII. Often when I think of WWII, I think of Nazi Germany, concentration camps, and Allied forces on the beaches of Normandy - hurrah! I'm just realizing I don't know nearly as much about what happened on this side of the world. Apparently Manila was the most heavily bombed city in Asia (even our Fat Man and Little Boy didn't create as much damage) and the 2nd most heavily bombed city in the world (after Warsaw) in WWII. The Intramuros tour started and ended in the only building left standing in the city center, San Agustin Church.

We were a little late getting to the tour, so I missed the beginning about Spanish colonialism and the Chinese influence in the Philippines, but I was present and wide awake to hear about the Battle of Manila in WWII. Apparently the Japanese had booted out our General MacArthur and his troops and were able to take over Manila for a few years. When MacArthur came to get it back, a Japanese general disobeyed orders to retreat and set about slaughtering several hundred thousand innocent Filipinos, which we now call the Manila Massacre. Horrified as I was to hear this, my heart 'bout fell to the floor when I learned that the country responsible for bombing Manila was the good ol' US of A - on paper, we were bombing a Japanese-occupied area with some unfortunate collateral damage; in real life we bombed the crap out of a whole metropolis that never even wanted any part of our war. We got the Japanese out of Manila, but we destroyed it in the process. Just further proof, I guess, that no one ever really wins in war.

I'd like to take the tour again to hear the beginning about the Spanish and the Chinese, because I'm starting to answer my earlier question of "What is Philippine culture?". It seems like Philippine culture is really a mish-mash of local, Spanish, Chinese, American, and a few other Asian cultures. They've been occupied by other peoples so many times, there's no way to separate out what is theirs alone and what's been adopted. Makes me kinda' feel right at home, in a way! ;)

On another note, we recorded our Cast Album last week. Funny how exhausting studio work can be; I worked less in those 2 days in the studio than I have since I got here, but nothing's tired me out nearly as much. Lea's brother, Gerard Salonga (a well-known musician in his own right), did some amazing work; he conducted the orchestra and was in the booth supervising us laying down the tracks. I can't wait to hear it; the creative team seems very happy with it.

We've got our show together now. We're at that point where we're adding costumes and props, and we'll start tech next week. Everyone keeps saying how short our tech process is (10 days of 10/12's) - which seems like a LOT to me since most regional theatre usually techs in one week with only 3 or 4 10/12's! (For those of you not in the biz, "10/12's" are where we work 12 hour days with one 2 hour break - brutal!) But we really are doing a Broadway show that just happens to be touring Asia, so 10 days is a lot shorter than the usual month of tech for Broadway! There's a lot of magic, puppets, etc. in the show, so I can understand why creatives might be a little nervous. We'll be ready, though, I'm sure.

I keep losing my 200 pisos each week in our poker tournament, but I like to think at least I'm learning from some really good players. (200 p is about $4 US, so I'm basically paying a couple bucks to play and chat with some of my favorite people for 3 or 4 hours - MORE than worth it.) Aaron, our poker host, invited me to join his weekly game when we get back to NYC, and I don't even think he did it just to be able to take REAL money from me. ;)

The weather here is now crap, I'm afraid we may have have passed the best we're going to get all summer. :( It's rainy season now, and it really means it. Locals tell me March is the best time of year here, but I can't quite wrap my mind around that - it just seems all wrong to me and my less-than-tropical residence in NYC!

What else? Oh, I finally took more pictures, and I will post them all after this, I promise. Just gotta' figure out how this blog thing does that . . .

Not much else new. Everything's great here! I can't say I even miss NYC at all. I do miss my Makers Mark, though - hasn't quite hopped this pond, yet, unfortunately. And I miss good Italian food, but my figure is only benefitting from that! So all is well; I'll post again before we hit tech since you won't hear from me for probably another 2 weeks after that.

Much love, my friends.

Manila - Week 2 Update (Filipino Food!)

I finally tried some Filipino food last night - and loved it! A couple of us went out to dinner and shared a big platter so we could all try a lot of different things. The names are gone, but I tried some bits of pork that were lightly battered and fried with kind of a vinegar-y yet sweet dipping sauce, had some grilled squid (still gotta' get used to them serving the whole animal intact, looking like it just crawled out of the ocean and onto my plate by way of a BBQ grill), had some BBQ chicken that would rival my dad's, and some random veggies in a spicy-kinda'-sweet sauce. As my friend Julia said, it's ALL about that sauce - good stuff! Everything was delicious. For dessert, I had myself a cocktail - I've yet to find Makers Mark anywhere here :( - and picked at a bit of Jefferson's "mango slice" (which seemed to be mango ice cream sandwiched between layers of granola) and Julia's gelatin phantasmagoria (actual name is completely different and gone from my head). I've no idea, really, what was in that besides bits of gelatin, but she loved it; my reaction was more lukewarm since I'm not really into eating horse hooves. It seemed to be bits of green gelatin in coconut milk along with other stringy bits of white gelatin, or possibly some kind of noodles - ??? Anyway, looking forward to more Pinoy culinary pleasures for the next couple months!

Our Herald from the show started a poker tournament last night and after a rather strong start, I promptly lost about 400 pisos (or almost $9.00 US) - big spender, I know. We were all beaten by a newbie (had just learned the game 30 minutes before the tournament - !!!) in the first round, then by our Prince in the second, and I was out like a light shortly after as the game went until well after midnight. (What's with the old lady bedtimes still?) Lots of fun, though; I play a bit, but tournament play is quite different from sitting in for an occasional hand here and there and I could use a little more experience with the escalating stakes involved. Looking forward to adding a few pisos to my per diem every week! . . . hopefully. ;)

More later - I'm off to find some kind of lunch I've never had before.

Manila - End of Week 1

So it's our first official day off and I feel like I should go out and do or see something in Manila. And I'm thinking that something might just be a movie. Not much motivation for anything else.

I went out last night with some cast members and managed to stay up until midnight – quite a feat considering I still want to lay my head down around 8pm. Managed to sleep in until 7:30am this morning, too! We went to a Thai restaurant in the Greenbelt, which is quite possibly the best mall ever. Lots of coffee shops, restaurants, stores, live music, museums, and all spread out in this mix of indoor/outdoor spaces. Lots of trees, plants, open air – really the best way to design a mall if you have to have one. I hate shopping, but this place is really quite pleasant and relaxing.

Anyway, we had some Thai food, and I proceeded to set my lips afire with my stir-fried chicken with holy basil. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a 5-alarm kinda' girl – I love spicy, and am usually not satisfied until my nose, eyes, and ears are running and I'm almost crying. This was WAY beyond that. The kind of spicy that literally made my lips AND NOSE burn, and almost had me convinced that I could, in fact, breathe fire. I only made it halfway through my meal – it was good, but it's clear that even super spicy Thai food in the States is nothing compared with the real thing. I also had the Tom Yum Goong soup, which is a spicy prawn soup that I've always loved, but was a little grossed out that they actually put the whole animal in my soup. Two, in fact. I had to let my mind wrap around that idea for awhile, scooped the two crustaceans out and set them aside, finished my soup, then decided to go for it, anyway, and tore into the poor (very much alive-looking) creatures. Once they no longer had faces they were much easier to swallow and quite tasty.

A couple of our cast members are local actors and one of them suggested a specifically Pinoy delicacy: balut. I thought he was pulling my leg but have since verified that this is for real. Duck fetuses and hot sauce. Baby ducks, not quite fully-formed, that you break out of the egg and eat whole. Uncooked, even. I've been eating a lot of raw fish since I got here – perfect breakfast food, surprisingly enough – but balut will be a struggle for me, I'm sure. I have several weeks still to work up the guts . . . literally.

I might be off to a museum today, because that sounds nice and easy and not too expensive or overly ambitious. I'd really love to sit by the pool, but I don't think the sun is going to show at all today. There's this weird cloud cover; Manila doesn't seem to have too many super tall buildings, so you can practically see horizon to horizon and there's just white covering everything. Not really cloudy as I know it, and not really fog, either, but like someone just laid a thick layer of cotton over the city. Not very inspiring to get out and about.

Recently got a short introduction to Manila's seamier side. I'm not sure what it is about me that makes people want to share this kind of info with me, but at least it's interesting stuff. One of the locals I get to interact with every day pointed out a couple of sex hotels on the way back to our hotel. Maximum 3-hour stay. His English wasn't the best, so I'm not sure if we were communicating very clearly, but he told me prostitution is legal here, along with dog-fighting and cock-fighting – you know, in case I felt the need to satisfy EVERY possible vice, I'm now covered. I'm not really into seeing animals tear each other apart (I've seen enough of that kind of thing backstage when two divas collide), and I'm not sure I could keep a straight face long enough to ever try and hire a prostitute, but I do love getting to know something not-so-touristy about Manila.

I'm beginning to think half the Pinoy population is employed as security guards. They're everywhere. Anytime you enter a building, you're screened. They look in your purse/bags, they've got the metal-detector wands, etc. I'm not sure what all the security is about. It's a little annoying – my backpack is searched everyday even re-entering our own hotel after rehearsals – but if it's that strict, I guess there must be good reason.

Rehearsals are awesome; I feel so blessed. We record the cast album in 10 days, then hard back at work to open, I think, maybe 2 weeks later. I see posters everywhere, and Lea's face on billboards, and even one giant 4-story banner hung up in the mall advertising a contest to win tickets to our show. (I know, I should take a picture!) I promise to keep my camera with me today, and will take a photo of SOMETHING so I can get myself in the habit.

Manila - Week 1 Update

I know, it's been several days since my last post, but we really kinda' hit the ground running and this is my first chance to sit down at a computer for more than 5 minutes without either having to run off to rehearsal or put my butt in bed before I pass out sitting up. I have the day off today, though; I think Lea has some press stuff all day, and since all my scenes are with her, I get to look at my lines poolside today. :)

Typhoon Frank/Fengshen finally left the Philippines on Monday, but the country is still dealing with the aftermath. It's really quite sad - the newspapers are still headlining with all the damage, injuries, lives lost, etc. I don't have the paper in front of me, but I read at breakfast that there are close to 500 dead, maybe 250 injured, and a couple hundred more still missing or unaccounted for. Over 70,000 homes destroyed . . . ugh. They're retiring the name "Frank" from the list because of it's severity. Not sure how much news has covered it in the US, but it's quite serious over here.

Other than than the typhoons, though, Manila is lovely. It's about 80 degrees every day, sunny, tropical breezes blowing . . . perfect, really. I don't even turn the AC on. We're rehearsing right by the ocean - I walked down to the beach yesterday to eat lunch and was, unfortunately, quite disappointed. It wasn't really a beach; it was somewhat fenced off, but a portion of it had fallen into disrepair and I crossed through that. Wish I hadn't. The waves hitting the coastline were more litter and trash than they were water, and the water itself was actually brown. I've never seen the ocean that color. There's signs and tips advertised everywhere about living and working "green" in the Philippines, but I guess that'll take some time to take effect. Further south, though, is supposed to be some great surfing and scuba-diving. The Philippines has the largest populations of humpback and whale sharks of anywhere in the world, so I'm hoping I'll have a chance to make it out on a boat to spot some. (Might even try surfing again, who knows?)

I'm struggling a bit to find what is specifically Philippine culture - food, art, etc. Manila is apparently quite diverse, and especially where we're at. We're staying in a more international business-oriented area of Manila, so I see people from all over the world at breakfast. Even the TV channels speak to that; they have CNN, BBC World, some possibly Korean channel (?), several Philippino stations (where they speak in kind of the Philippine equivalent of Spanglish, half Tagalog/Filipino and half English - took me a while to realize it wasn't my ears just misunderstanding half of what they said), and - randomly - a German channel. We're right next to a GIANT mall - and I am NOT exaggerating - a mall so big there is nothing else around but MORE mall. Hopefully once I settle into the time change and rehearsals, I'll see about how to get a little further away from our hotel.

They have these public transport/buses called jeepneys. They're supposed to be super cheap, but I have to admit I'm a little hesitant because I've yet to actually see one STOP. Just yesterday I watched as a dozen people got out of this vehicle that really probably only seats 4-6 adults (?!?) AS IT WAS STILL MOVING. It did slow down a bit for them, but I'm just clumsy enough to break something vital trying to crawl in and out of a moving vehicle, so we'll see if I ever work up the nerve.

Anyway, all is good over here with me. I did finally buy a digital camera, and even took a picture. Yes, ONE. I'll keep working on that so I can post some photos here eventually. For now, I'm off to finish "God of War" on my PSP and then maybe go get an $8 hour-long massage . . . I know, ridiculous, right?!? Sure am loving it here! :)

Mabuhay in Manila

Well, we made it to Manila after about 18 hours on a couple planes, and just in time. Typhoon Frank hit just minutes after we landed in Manila and has since caused 89 flights to be completely canceled. (How much would that suck to travel for 18 hours and have to turn around for a couple more just to make it to a safe place to land? Besides the fact that we would have been stuck wherever that is for quite awhile!) I think the worst of it is further south than we are - unfortunately 19 dead at this point - but we've had some amazingly heavy and constant rain since we landed almost 22 hours ago, and Manila is under Public Storm Signal No. 2, whatever that means. The lights have flickered a couple times, the pool flooded and has closed off part of the 2nd floor, and there seems to be some interference over phone lines but we are by far better off than those in the hardest-hit areas. It's supposed to rain for the rest of the week, so I do hope anymore casualties can be avoided.

On a more personal note, I am ti-RED! I'm writing this to try and stay awake for another hour. My body clock says it's 7:50am and I haven't been to bed, but it's actually 7:50pm in Manila and if I go to bed this early I'll be up well before the sun and worthless by the afternoon. We start rehearsals tomorrow, so I've got to get on a good schedule here soon . . .

Haven't had much of a chance to look around, yet, or see anything interesting. I did find the grocery store today, and I don't know if they're all like this in the Philippines or not, but I frikkin' love it. Anything and everything you could possibly need - and even multiple brands of each! Just one of those things that Manhattan doesn't really do well: well-stocked and plentiful grocery/drug stores. (Sigh) Sure could get used to that one-stop shopping.

Fading fast here, but I've only killed about 10 minutes so far . . . hmmm.

Walking around today, I was really happy to encounter lots of smiling, warm, and generous faces; can't really say yet if that's a cultural thing or just really great customer service and a few randomly friendly strangers but, again, a welcome change from NYC, where merchants act like they're doing YOU a favor by letting you buy their merchandise, and you're lucky to get ANY kind of acknowledgment from strangers - much less a smile!

It's now 8:16pm and I'm just not going to make another 44 minutes. More later, of course; I finally joined the 21st century and bought a digital camera today, so I'll also be sharing pics as soon as my eyes are rested enough to be able to read how to work it!

Good night, Philippines/Good morning, USA.