Ikarus Theater Collaborative

Ikarus Pocket Plays: Alter x Compass

Remember the line, “all the world’s a stage” by William Shakespeare? We lived by this statement. As a matter of fact, we may have taken it too far, but in a good way. Plays as we all know, need a stage and an area where the audience could sit back and enjoy a show. But Pocket Plays gave a bar hopper or a girl who just went out for coffee an unexpectedly experience: an interactive twinbill play. Take it from me who was able to witness the laughs, gasps, and even ooh’s of strangers as they watched Alter and Compass while having beer and coffee. It was quite a risk since we had to perform in environments that change every show. But it was sure worth it because at the end of each night, our message of Truth was delivered.

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- Jessa Espina | FOH & Stage Hand

Plastic Trees, Artificial Lights

Plastic Trees, Artificial Lights was part of 2019's Christmas extravaganza, which included Pinoy Christmas-themed dances from Lahing Kayumanggi, and a Jazz set by Project Yazz. Under the Stars: A Yuletide Celebration of the Arts--as we called it--from ideation to opening night, gave the team only under two months to execute. But with everybody's dedication and hard work (our rehearsals on-stage totalled around a mere 16 hours), we somehow pulled it off, a play with song and music, no less. Sometimes, I still find myself singing to the heart-wrenching libretto for PT;AL written by Jay and catchy melodies by Faye and Bergan of Project Yazz.

- Kit Singson | Production Manager, Marketing Head & Actor

Theater Bytes Festival

Easily one of the most exciting things about the Ikarus season is the annual Theater Bytes, a festival of plays where we invite different theater groups and practitioners to produce original one-act plays under the theme: technology. We've seen vastly out of the box concepts, and innovative approaches to old themes. Theater Bytes (which was also known as Saliw ng Araw) is Ikarus' laboratory where we give our budding writers the stage, where we test new material, and where we as groups of artists can learn from each other.

Beautiful Strangers

Beautiful Strangers was our first collaboration with Story Board Junkies, a complete sharing of ideas and manpower between two theater companies. The result was a devised staging of the original text which was geared more towards the Filipino experience.

Timeline: A Spoken-Word Devised Play

I had always been fascinated with the concept of a spoken-word play where the dialogue is delivered in rhythmic, elevated language, a musical without music. Over drinks, we hatched the idea of a devised, epistolary, spoken-word play, using the "love story" of two of our friends. The act of creation was divine: we had with us writers with differing styles and persuasions, but with similar enough sensibilities that we were able to become as close during the production as the characters we were portraying. 

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- Justin Ayran | Writer, Production Manager & Actor

Paghihintay Kay Godot ni Samuel Beckett

Waiting for Godot is one of my dream plays. A 3-4 hour travel time from Parañaque to Marikina (if there's no traffic), an 8-hour night shift after every rehearsals, on top of taking care and providing for my family with a few months old baby girl --these were just some of the challenges I had to endure as I went through this play and looking back at it now, I could genuinely say that it's all worth it. Working for Ikarus (which meant working with BJ back then) will always give me a smile because that experience made me realize what I really wanna be and do for the rest of my life, a thriving, struggling (sometimes starving), but happy artist.

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- Joel Garcia | Actor\

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Bastion

Bastion was an attempt to understand the evil that dwells in the heart of every man. The text includes a lot of unsavory content including cannibalism, incest, and patricide. Dealing with such a macabre piece, it was interesting how much care and humanity was put into turning the piece live. A lot of understanding and respect was shared between the actors. But despite the kindness back stage, an onslaught of cruelty was displayed on-stage.

- Jay Crisostomo | Playwright & Director

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Suzue Toshiro's My Friend Has Come

A collaboration from Japanese playwright, Suzue Toshiro and Ateneo-based director Ricardo Abad, co-produced by the Ikarus Theater Collaborative and the Ateneo Fine Arts Department, this play had two runs, one in DITO and the other at the now defunct Ateneo Blackbox Theater.

God of the Machine

The first play to premiere in the DITO stage and Ikarus's flagship production. God of the Machine tackles the problems of a writer, a creator, who is caught unaware by an audience and must create something on  the spot. The play complicates when the play he wrote swallows him up alive and he becomes but another character in the story. 

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