With a full team of Filipino producers, “Here Lies Love” about Imelda Marcos’ glam life will make its entry in New York’s Broadway.
A hit or miss show for Filipino fans will come to Broadway as David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s disco-inspired musical “Here Lies Love,” a romantization of Imelda Marcos’ rise to prominence and downfall in the Philippines, will make its debut at the Broadway Theatre in New York City starting June 17..
Starting with previews and the official opening night on July 20, theater goers can immerse themselves in a mostly standing-room format for full engagement, with a production that “will transform the venue’s traditional proscenium floor space into a dance club environment, where audiences will stand and move with the actors,” reported Variety.
Its world premiere 10 years ago at the Public Theatre had audiences on their feet and a reception big enough to also premier in London and Its biggest staging to date at London’s Royal National Theatre in 2014.
The show then came back into productions again in America at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in 2017.
According to one of the show’s producers, Jose Antonio Vargas, and the founder of the immigration organization Define American: “Filipinos are among the largest immigrant groups in America –– and also among the most invisible culturally, despite the two nations’ shared colonial histories. While the Asian diaspora can no longer be denied in American popular culture, Filipinas and Filipinos remain woefully outside the spotlight. I’m thrilled to help break barriers on what has historically been an exclusive stage: Broadway.”
The show will be directed by Alex Timbers, choreographed by Annie-B Parson, who also worked on Byrne's 2019 Broadway production American Utopia, and will be co-produced by Hal Luftig, Patrick Catullo, Diana Di Menna, and Clint Ramos and Jose Vargas, who are the first-ever Filipino lead producers on Broadway.
“As a team of binational American producers – Filipinos among us – we are thrilled to bring Here Lies Love to Broadway,” the show's producers said in a joint statement as reported by Deadline.
"We welcome everyone to experience this singularly exuberant piece of theater. The history of the Philippines is inseparable from the history of the United States, and as both evolve, we cannot think of a more appropriate time to stage this show. See you on the dance floor!"
However, some Filipino netizens are not as welcoming as some of the Westerners as they see it as getting a bigger production to reach out to a wider public, hence, getting the wrong message with its alternate storytelling of Marcos’ dictatorship.
Tags: #Broadway, #musical, #dictatorship