There has been a recent conversation in the Philippine theater community about ‘elite’ and ‘non-elite’ theater-about which companies are legitimate, which audiences matter, and whose work is supposedly more worthy of recognition.
Perhaps it is time to move beyond these labels.
There is no such thing as a ‘legitimate’ or ‘illegitimate’ theater company. Philippine theater has never been one thing. As theater scholar and critic Dr. Nicanor G. Tiongson has documented, it has evolved through indigenous traditions, folk forms, colonial influences, popular entertainment, and contemporary practices. Its diversity is not a problem to be resolved; it is part of what makes Philippine theater distinctly Filipino.
Different companies have different aesthetics, resources, training, audiences, and ways of telling stories. That does not make one inherently more valid than another. Theater is bigger than any individual company or artistic brand.
The better questions are: What does a production contribute? Who does it reach? And does it create more space for people to make, watch, and love theater?
One of the challenges Philippine theater must confront is its Manila-centric structure. Metro Manila has understandably become the country’s major theater center, but geography should never determine artistic value.
Excellence does not have an address.
Regional theater communities are already creating meaningful work and developing artists and audiences. What is needed is greater circulation of artists, productions, ideas, and audiences.
YPC Stage, the commercial arm of the Biñan Youth Performance Council, offers one example. Its inaugural production, Mapanakit, staged 14 full-house shows at UP Diliman, bringing Biñan-based performers to Quezon City and placing them alongside professional theater actors.
The purpose was not to prove which group was better, but to create a crossover between community and professional theater, regional and Metro Manila artists, and different audiences.
Regional artists should not have to become ‘Manila theater’ to be recognized. The goal is not to make regional theater imitate Manila, but to make Philippine theater genuinely national
Tiongson’s idea of Teatro para sa Tao offers another useful lens: theater must remain connected to the people it serves. Theater cannot thrive without audiences, and accessibility is more than cheaper tickets. It also means making theater geographically reachable, culturally welcoming, and relevant to people who may not traditionally see themselves as theater audiences.
A community production may introduce someone to theater. A commercial production may turn that first experience into a habit. An experimental production may challenge an experienced audience. A regional production may allow a community to see its own stories onstage.
These are not competing functions. They are parts of an ecosystem.
But accessibility cannot mean that theater workers must continually subsidize the art through unpaid labor.
Theater is expensive to produce, and artists deserve to be paid. Audiences readily understand paying for concerts, movies, books, and streaming services. Theater should not be treated differently.
Buying a ticket is not merely paying for entertainment. It supports an entire creative ecosystem.
If Philippine theater is to become a sustainable profession, audiences, producers, institutions, and government must recognize the economic value of creative labor.
The real challenge is not that there are too many theater companies or productions. It is that there are still too few people going to the theater.
The Philippines needs to develop a theater-going public.
The competition is not simply between theater companies. It is for the attention of Filipinos choosing among movies, concerts, streaming, sports, social media, and countless other forms of entertainment. Every production that brings someone into a theater and gives that person a reason to return helps build the industry.
If the Philippines is to become a thriving creative industry in Asia, it needs a theater ecosystem that is broad, sustainable, and genuinely national – one that creates opportunities beyond Metro Manila, supports different forms of theater, pays artists fairly, and makes theater part of Filipino cultural life.
This belief is also personal.
Formal theater education provided me the foundation, but years of practice led me to a deeper grounding in the power of community theater. Through teaching in universities and working with emerging artists and students, that same passion and love for theater can be passed on to another generation.
Because theater is ultimately sustained by love.
Not the kind of love that asks who is better, more legitimate, or more deserving.
But the kind that keeps people creating when resources are limited, brings artists from different communities into the same room, gives young artists the courage to believe they have a place onstage, and keeps practitioners building even when the work is difficult.
That love should not compete. It should multiply.
Philippine theater does not need one kind of theater to rise above the rest. It needs more people to create, more people to watch, and more people willing to make space for one another.
The future of Philippine theater is not about deciding who belongs. It is about making the stage big enough for everyone.
That is a theater for all.