In-Depth: How Theater Changes Lives at the Tuloy Foundation

In-Depth: How Theater Changes Lives at the Tuloy Foundation

Warning: Undefined array key "file" in /home/paul/domains/theaterfansmanila.com/public_html/wp-includes/media.php on line 1734

I first encountered the Tuloy Foundation last year, when they were raising funds to send two ballet prodigies to compete abroad. John Edmar Sumera and Benedict Sabularse, once street children, were housed by the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Street Children’s Village in Alabang and have since been part of the foundation’s ballet program for the last 3 years.

A few weeks ago, I met actor Chino Veguillas who mentioned that they were about to stage a production of Once on this Island with kids from the same foundation.

Chino invited TFM to tour the foundation and last February 16, I took him up on his offer.

About The Tuloy Foundation

President Fr. Marciano Evangelista founded the Tuloy Foundation in a small space in 1993 in Makati. It later moved to Alabang in 2001 because he wanted a bigger place to house a lot more children and accommodate a school. Now, they take care of 200 residents and 700 non-residents aged 9 to 18. Their resident clients are made up of street children who have been abused, abandoned, or orphaned. The non-resident children, on the other hand, come from very poor families who struggle to send their children to school. The most basic and most important requirements that they all must share—ambition, hope, dreams, and a drive to succeed.

Marketing officer Ms. Farah Picache welcomed me and gave me a tour of the beautiful 4.5 hectare village. She took me to see the different rooms where the kids go for free schooling. It is a non-formal set-up where they use the alternative learning system accredited by the Department of Education. With this system, the kids can finish school and apply for a job or a college education in 6 years. The kids learn about automotive repairs, refrigeration and air-conditioning repairs, electrical work, baking, dressmaking, call center training, and culinary arts. They get a fixed schedule from 7:30am to 4pm that helps teach them discipline.

After their strict schedule, they engage in extra-curricular activities like sports and the performing arts. They also have their own aquaponics garden which Fr. Marciano started in 2011. They eat the fish and vegetables that they harvest, use them in culinary courses, and sell the excess. Taking care of the garden has also become a form of healing for the kids.

They also have a gym and a massive football field, where football coaches from Hong Kong fly in twice a month on average to teach them. They’ve also invited informal settlers aged 7-8 to participate in the trainings (including the feeding program) after they attend their regular schooling.

It is such a beautiful place, all funded by donations from private companies and individuals.

 

The Performing Arts Program by The Rude Mechanicals

After the comprehensive tour, I meet with Joonee Garcia, the woman in-charge of the foundation’s performing arts program (ballet, theater, choir, guitar and violin).

Joonee is part of the group called The Rude Mechanicals (formerly Theater Down South), headed by Rep alum and theater veteran Michael Williams. They used to handle the theater program of De La Salle Zobel while Joonee herself also took charge of the choir in Tuloy. While she was looking for a home for The Rude Mechanicals, she decided to strike a deal to rehearse in Tuloy for free while their group handled the foundation’s theater program.

“We believe strongly in performing arts, and it’s a baby goal, but it’s a goal we hope would grow of maybe identifying 1-10 people who really have a chance to make it in the performing arts and to get them to where they need to go.” says Joonee. “We’re on the second batch of our ballet program. The first batch we had two who went to Ballet Manila, we have two who are now in The Philippine High School for the Arts, and then the two who I’m sure you’ve heard about [ John Edmar Sumera and Benedict Sabularse] who have just been all over. They just came back from the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland. They’ve won a lot of offers, so one of them is going to be in Hamburg, and one of them is going to be in Marce, France starting September, they’re gone. They’ll be there na. And they’ve only been dancing for 3 years, which is great.”

With the success of their ballet program, they’re now looking to solidify their theater program.

“The theater program is about 2 or 3 years old. We’re trying to build a theater. We have not really received a lot of attention locally, nor have we received funding locally. However, we have been receiving help from our friends abroad.”

They did a four-performance, 2-day run of ‘Once on this Island’ last Feb 4-5 at the Insular Life Theater in Alabang.

“Of course with theater, it’s a little harder because there are a lot of obstacles, English being one of them. English is a big initiative in school but of course the kids here they understand it, they speak it, but they don’t speak it well. They’re not too confident about it. Which is why we did ‘Once On This Island’ because it’s sung through. And because they’re islanders it doesn’t actually matter if their English is a little bit off because it’s supposed to be so it’s a good–we thought– vehicle for it.”

International Attention

She talks about how West End actress Katy Osborne first got involved with the program and even organized a fundraiser with her fellow West End artists.

“The touring cast of ‘Mamma Mia!’ visited here [back in 2012] when they were here. And Katy was part of that touring cast and she was so taken by the place she came back to volunteer. She did a couple of weeks with us, and then the next year we had decided to build the theater. We were raising funds for it and what she did is she organized a Sports Day among all the West End theaters in the UK and they sent us some money. And because of that also, she comes back every time she can to come to see what we’re doing.”

“We were raising funds for it and what she did is she organized a Sports Day among all the West End theaters in the UK and they sent us some money. And because of that also, she comes back every time she can to come to see what we’re doing.”

Having Katy in the program attracted other touring artists to come over as well.

“We did one fundraising concert last year and then Katy came back during our prod week of ‘Once on this Island’ to help us at the end of it. And because of her, we then had other people coming to visit us. The cast of ‘Les Misérables’ came last year to visit us. And then Madame Morrible from Wicked, Kim Ismay, she was here to watch one of our last rehearsals here. She gave our kids notes and stuff like that. And then we got a video greeting from the cast of Wicked. They’re gonna be coming over in the next few weeks to come and visit the kids.”

What do the casts do when they come?

“It’s mostly to interact with the kids. So like ‘Les Mis’, when they came, they had lunch here and then they actually joined our theater class. We had a theater day. It depends on what they want to do. I understand that for Wicked, I think the monkeys are gonna do a monkey workshop. And I think the girl who plays Nessarose, Emily [Shaw], I think she’s interested in doing a Matilda workshop because she had done Matilda.”

Katy has been working in the West End for 15 years, where she has done musicals such as ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’, ‘Hello Dolly!’, ‘The Bet’, and ‘We Will Rock You’. Katy’s latest project is ‘Big the Musical’, based on the 1988 Tom Hanks film, where she plays Abigail. It is set to open on the West End this 2017.

How does the theater program look year-round?

“They do their thing here, they’ve done [‘Once on this Island’], so next year they’re going to do another. Every summer, we do a year-round theater class. And what we do to augment, because we teach them for free obviously, is we have a paying class also of students. So they come, and their tuition also helps to fund what we do with the kids here.”

She talks about the importance of forming a true community theater.

“It’s very interesting because the theater class we do here is a mixed aged theater class from 9 to 18 (years old). We put them all in one class. We put the private kids together with the Tuloy kids. That’s what happened in ‘Once on this Island’. It was actually the private kids and the Tuloy kids and some of the teachers all together so we’re really trying to push the agenda of a proper community theater, which is an entire community. Everyone. Patas lang kami.”

“It was actually the private kids and the Tuloy kids and some of the teachers all together so we’re really trying to push the agenda of a proper community theater, which is an entire community. Everyone. Patas lang kami.”

Relevance of Theater to Daily Lives

Why is it important for the kids to get involved with the program?

“These kids will never have the opportunity to do these things. And they need it because it’s transformative, it’s therapeutic, it builds all of these confidence skills that you’ll need no matter what you do.”

“These kids will never have the opportunity to do these things. And they need it because it’s transformative, it’s therapeutic, it builds all of these confidence skills that you’ll need no matter what you do.”

It can also help them find a career.

“Not necessarily as actors. Actors are the easiest things to find and to replace. But no one trains stagehands. No one trains dressers. Costume makers. Stage managers. It’s always handed down.”

“Wouldn’t it be great then if we had a working theater where we have kids who have been working on shows, who have been making their own props, being their own stage managers, doing everything themselves, and learning how to do it properly. We started the model in La Salle. Like for ‘Once on this Island’, our stage manager is one of our students from La Salle. Our program is done by our graphic designer and finished off by our kids from La Salle. We’re hoping to do the same with the kids here. It’s a trickle-down effect. And they’re actually here right now helping us teach this next batch of kids.”

“I’m hoping to sit down with Concertus owner Joey Verzo once Wicked is done because we were talking about potentially next time, they do a lot of local hiring when a company comes… dressers, seamstresses, front of house, certainly and I was telling them, wouldn’t it be great if we could train them from the ground up rather than hiring whoever and saying okay this is the job.”

For ‘Once on this Island’, the students did their own sets and costumes. The entire show was costumed by a student.

What is the vision of the entire performing arts program?

“It’s ballet, it’s theater, hopefully later on music. We’re really trying to generate a whole performing arts thing.”

“It’s ballet, it’s theater, hopefully later on music. We’re really trying to generate a whole performing arts thing.”

I ask her about the ballet school that she and her sister run in BF. It’s called Academy One. They hold auditions for the kids in Tuloy and train them in the school for 3-5 times a week and enter them in competitions. She talks about how John Edmar Sumera and Benedict Sabularse were particularly gifted from the get-go. At this point, Katy joins the conversation also.

How does the performing arts program concretely transform and affect the kids in the foundation?

Joonee: “They’ve been in workshop and they do little performances because they’re in choir, ballet, or whatever, and I think it really helps that they work with the private school kids and even with their teachers sometimes because if there’s a guest teacher, we all take the workshop. It kind of gives you a little bit of confidence. It makes you level up. And suddenly you see ‘Oh I can’t do just this if everyone’s doing that’. And because they’re all friends. It’s really because they’re all friends. There’s a lot of love in that company so they tend to want to… like if someone like Katy comes, they tend to want to work hard for you [Katy].”

Katy: “Yeah, yeah, they do but then it shows that they CAN do it. So it’s not a case of like maybe they can’t because just like you said if a guest comes in, suddenly they up the ante and they can do it. And then once they’ve done it once, you know, Ms. Joonee won’t ever let them forget it. Because you know, you’ve seen it. So yeah, definitely. And for like how it transforms and affects, I’m sure [Joonee] seen it much more than I have, but when I came a few years ago, there was one boy in particular, Hensen, at the beginning of the workshop, he really didn’t say anything. He was really shy. And then when we did the performance he had a solo. And that happens I think all the time doesn’t it. I was only here as a guest but that happens a lot.”

Joonee: “And the people watch. And then people appreciate and they’re like okay, and it helps and when like for example the cast of ‘Les Mis’ came, and they sang, and everyone’s you know like, * gestured applauding *, that’s gotta do something to you. That’s gotta do something to you. And it’s funny because sometimes I think because they don’t get to see that many shows and I think these kids they have no idea how big a deal it is. They don’t have that concept. Now we watched Wicked so when Wicked comes they’ll have some idea of how big a deal it is.”

“And then people appreciate and they’re like okay, and it helps and when like for example the cast of ‘Les Mis’ came, and they sang, and everyone’s you know like, * gestured applauding *, that’s gotta do something to you. That’s gotta do something to you.”

While the kids were still reeling from withdrawals after their ‘Once on this Island’ run closed, they were given tickets by the producers to see Wicked two days after.

Katy: “But so much rehearsal leading up to it. And you know it becomes part of your life and it’s suddenly, the show’s done, and every time when you sort of meet for theater it’s the time when you normally meet for theater it’s just not there. It’s quite hard as an adult let alone a child. So things like Wicked is a real boost.”

They rehearsed the musical for around 6 months from September to February.

What attracted you to the foundation in the first place?

Katy: “When we all came as a cast for ‘Mamma Mia’, the children performed for us. That was for me one of the first things I was like, more the talent. It was less about the poor children, you know. It was more about… it’s the discipline. The reason a lot of mothers at home would send their children to dance is discipline. Especially ballet. That’s where we all start. And then you grow up. If you grow up in theater, it’s so disciplined. It’s really fun, and we have a lot of fun, but it’s, it’s discipline. You can’t just not be there one day because it lets down the whole team. And when I watched them do, I think there was something like 300 of them maybe, all doing you know the same dance, I was like this is really good. It’s really good potential. And then when I came back to do workshops, I mean I planned enough I thought and I got through my material in about 3 days. So at night I was like messaging my drama school friends saying, ‘I need more stuff!’ (laughs) They’re really good. So the talent is probably what attracted me here the most for theater.”

“The talent is probably what attracted me here the most for theater.”

She has been coming over once a year on average.

They’re planning to do Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as their next big musical for next year. But at the moment, they will continue to meet 3 times a week (T-TH-S) to continue honing their craft.

Watch a video of Katy’s musical theater workshop below!