Inspired by Lara's entry about leading men.

Lara once posted an entry in her LJ that was inspired by Lea's most recent Backstory column, which was a tribute to some of her leading men. Now both Lea's column and Lara's blog inspired me to do the same tribute to some of the men I've shared the stage with.


Ryan Flores
Hahaha, I just have to include this diva. When we did Beauty and the Beast for Greenstage, I hardly rehearsed with him because our schedules had clashed. I rehearsed with Drei, who was his understudy, instead. When he was one of my lead actors in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, he already had that diva vibe, so I was pretty relieved that I hardly rehearsed with him in Beauty and the Beast. But whenever he was there, I have to admit, he was always prepared, being the professional actor that he claimed to be. Hahaha, with that, it did make our kissing scene less awkward. If only he had learned how to carry me without letting my skirt flutter to give the audience a good peek-a-boo of what was underneath, hahaha. Funny, ang plastic pa yata ng smiles namin when we did our final dance during the closing show. "Goodbye forever, sister," we both said.


Jerald Napoles
As title role in Maria Milagros Barbarosa, I had no idea who was playing my love interest prior to filming. Je was called at the last minute. His looks fit the role like a glove. Kargador nga kasi ang itsura, hahaha. And the whole time he was there, we hardly talked, even more when we filmed our scene, but there was a lot of staring involved. I guess I sort of got intimidated by him only because I knew that he was an actor in some of Tanghalang Pilipino's plays. When he opened his mouth and sang, he also had a clear voice that was sort of a weakness of mine when it came to guys. We only got to talk a few months after the filming had finished, when we got re-introduced in TP and dated for a while.


Nicco Manalo
This may come out sort of biased, as Nicco is the closest to me among all of these guys. We sort of paired ourselves together as Napthali and wife in my thesis' restaging, and we thought that was that. We're pretty tight as psuedo-siblings, and I guess our rapport and audition performances for our recital of Our Town showed, because we got paired together as Emily Webb and George Gibbs. When we heard our names for the cast over dinner at Mang Inasal, we stared at each other silently, then laughed and high-fived across the table. But during the rehearsals, he admitted to not having done an onstage kiss yet, so we both compromised. Even with that, there was never a hint of awkwardness felt, plus Nicco's a very talented actor, then and now, and there's a great deal of trust between us, even though we really argue like siblings. Love you, baby bro.


RJ Camangon
In Blue Jeans, he played Alfie to my Dina. As I was his "Syotang Pa-class," he was my "Syotang Bakla," HAHAHAHA! During workshop exercises, he was always in check, always stopping to think. Roeder always had to surprise him so he would think and move faster. But when I first heard this guy sing, I fell in love with his voice. And he's got his own killer moves, plus teaches body jam before class to anyone who's interested. And no, Lara, I'm not posting the motel scene photo, hahaha. Anyway, speaking of the motel scene, we were warned about it from the very beginning when Roeder started casting us, but I guess we still sort of felt awkward about it, because RJ had claimed "that it was unnatural" for him, ahehe. But on the week of the show, we pulled it off pretty well, and got a lot of laughs for that scene alone.


Alvin Castro
The final choice for Alan to my Margaret in Nemesis. Haha, for a while, I sort of thought that the role was jinxed, because we always had a hard time looking for a guy who would play Alan. We were already hoping that Tad would be my Alan, but his other commitments suddenly became in conflict with our rehearsal schedule. Finally, Alvin finally got the role. Awkwardness galore, as for some reason, I had a tough time creating the relationship of our characters with him. There was always something missing on my part, and he was always on auto-correct mode whenever he made a mistake. But little by little, we shed our itty-bitty inhibitions as the show date drew closer. We trusted each other when it came to how we spoke and moved. I will never forget the show when he once called me by the name of Betty's character. I had to speak right away, otherwise he might auto-correct himself again.

Alvin: Alam mo bang dating scholar itong si Margaret?
Me: AKO??? Baka siya! (Pointing to Betty, who was playing Barbara)

John Baliza
He played the title role in Tartuffe opposite my Elmire. We worked together before in Beauty and the Beast when he played Roberto (Pinoy version of Cogsworth), so I already knew him then. Because he was already a friend, it wasn't pretty hard to establish a good rapport with him, and the awkwardness of the seduction scene was only funny because like RJ, it was unnatural for him as well. Hahaha, we managed to be in sync, despite the super long lines. We even devised an unspoken code whenever one of us forgot a line because he keeps forgetting his. In the end, I was the one who most often used it, hahahaha! What was hilarious about John was that even though we already knew each other from a past production, I only got to see how crazy he can be in Tartuffe. Here's to another toast!

Of course, the leading man that tops my list is the one that I haven't performed with before. Hahahaha.