The Cultural Center of the Philippines, Tanghalang Pilipino Inc., The Writersbloc Inc., and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, supported by The Japan Foundation Manila

present

Now on its 3rd year, the Virgin Labfest opens this June 28 and will run until July 8, 2007 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The Virgin Labfest (VLF), a festival of new plays (untried, untested, unpublished and unstaged) by both emerging and well-known playwrights, directors and actors, is now enthusiastically looked forward to by artists and audiences alike. This year's festival boasts a repertoire of 15 short plays in five trilogies as the main exhibition list. One of the trilogies features contributions of playwrights from Thailand, Singapore and Japan. Another independently produced trilogy of plays has been added to the festival-totalling the entire festival to a treat of 18 short plays. Full-length plays will also be featured in a series of dramatic readings at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino.

Tickets to the Virgin Labfest are at P200 (for plays to be shown at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute & Bulwagang Amado Hernandez) and "Pay What You Can" (for play readings at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino). For more details, please contact Tanghalang Pilipino at 832-3661, or the CCP Box Office at 832-3704. Visit our website for schedules.



A compilation of plays submitted by foreign playwrights. Tanghalang Huseng Batute, June 28 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM), July 7 (8:00 PM) and July 8 (3:00 PM)

A poetic improvisation where a newcomer, an alien/stranger both influences and terrifies the members of an undisclosed remote town

A surreal and inertly violent depiction of a Singaporean household whose scheming, double-dealing, and at times cruel transactions negotiated with each other makes for a rather intense sala-set drama

This is a moving ghost story and a touching memorial to the ravages of war and the significant resonance of War in Theater


Features household drama far from telenovela fare. Skeletons in the closet, in-house rebellions, and family decisions that just have to be made. Tanghalang Huseng Batute, June 29 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM), July 5 (3:00 PM) andJuly 8 (8:00 PM)

A funny and yet disturbing destruction of class and racial stereotypes, this comedy may seem to say more than just being wacky

A short, intense conversation between a son and his dying father torn by the need to migrate and the need to define home

About three generations of women painfully coming to terms with a reality that renders many women helpless and silent.

The most unsettling and disturbing compilation of the season. We enjoin you to widen your understanding, come in with an open mind and expect the unexpected. Warning: Hindi pang-isip bata. Tanghalang Huseng Batute, June 30 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM), July 5 (8:00 PM) and July 6 (3:00 PM)

A quiet yet intense confrontation between a fortune teller and her customer that becomes a battle of wit and a revelation of small cruelties and hypocrisies.

A rather macabre rendition of capitalist barbarism and a gruesome exploration of the weird, horrible patriarchal ways of the bourgeoisie

About an aging transvestite's bizarre association with a young dancer who harbors a family secret.

Provides another take on forbidden loves, sexual desire and the fruits it reaps, both good and evil. It is also 3 variations on a theme: Spring's awakening! Tanghalang Huseng Batute, July 1 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM), July 6 (8:00 PM) and July 7 (3:00 PM)

About a young boy's exposure to exploitation and cruelty, rendered more complicated by the environment he finds himself in, a world of gay impersonators

An epistolary drama about a man's awakening to love and betrayal. Letters that have not been sent become monologues of despair and a sense of renewal at the same time

About two sisters whose innocent conversation and unmalicious observations of a household not quite their own reveals the violence and inhumanity of the adults around them.

Bulwagang Amado Hernandez on June 29 (3:00 PM), June 30 (10:00 AM / 3:00 PM) and July 1 (3:00 PM).

Offers a wonderful juvenile perspective of the relationship between the personal and the political, made more marvelous with music and dance

A hilarious and biting play about three young children with superpowers and are heavily conflicted between saving the world or fulfilling the grueling, tedious domestic duties that their parents have ordered them to do

A strange but fascinating fable about a young boy who mistakenly traded his father for a toy



Bulwagang Amado Hernandez on July 6 (8:00 PM), July 7 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM) and July 8 (3:00 PM).

About two brothers battling for the right to claim property and lineage and revealing the fragile and uncertain state of any one's identity

A short but hilarious allegory that starts off like a folktale for children, but the issues laid down by two dragonflies and a butterfly turn this otherwise comic fantasy into a serious look into one's personality.

About a small town that witnesses a suicide, an open secret military operation in a Muslim community nearby, the coming of a stranger with a suitcase that contains a secret, which no one will ever know, and the numerous white lies of a woman