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Jose Mari Chan (center) with the cast of Rep's "Going Home to Christmas." Karen Flores Layno, ABS-CBN News

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Karen Flores

ABS-CBN News

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/17307657534661730765750081.jpeg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Jose Mari Chan (center) with the cast of Rep&#x27;s &quot;Going Home to Christmas.&quot; Karen Flores Layno, ABS-CBN News</div>MANILA -- Repertory Philippines is staging its first-ever original jukebox musical and it features the songs of no less than the country&#x27;s &quot;Mr. Christmas&quot; himself, Jose Mari Chan. Directed by Rep&#x27;s Jeremy Domingo, &quot;Going Home to Christmas&quot; will run from November 29 to December 15 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium in RCBC Plaza, Makati. It tells a story of various characters by award-winning writers Luna <span id="isPasted" style="color:rgb(65, 65, 65);letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none">Griño-Inocian, Robbie Guevara, and Joel Trinidad, and includes 22 of Chan&#x27;s hits such as &quot;Christmas in Our Hearts,&quot; &quot;A Perfect Christmas,&quot; and &quot;Beautiful Girl.&quot;&quot;I cannot express the joy that I&#x27;m feeling,&quot; Chan told ABS-CBN News on the sidelines of the musical&#x27;s media preview. &quot;Because it&#x27;s a fulfillment of my dream, and it&#x27;s a crowning glory.&quot;&quot;People will remember me and my songs -- hopefully, &#x27;Christmas in Our Hearts&#x27; will live on long after I&#x27;m gone. That my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will be singing that song,&quot; he added.&quot;It&#x27;s a dream come true and a blessing from God because the gift of music came from God, and what I did with that gift is my gift back to him.&quot;<div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&amp;href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FabscbnNEWS%2Fvideos%2F2552880344912354%2F&amp;show_text=false&amp;width=560&amp;t=0" width="560" height="314" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>&quot;Going Home to Christmas&quot; has a cast led by Carla Guevara-Laforteza, Lorenz Martinez, Noel Rayos, Neomi Gonzales, Floyd Tena, Mayen Bustamante-Cadd, Neo Rivera, Justine Narciso, and Carla Martinez.Musical director Ejay Yatco admitted that it was a &quot;daunting task&quot; to narrow down Chan&#x27;s body of work into 22 songs.&quot;Jose Mari Chan&#x27;s work spans decades. It&#x27;s a lifetime of work that you have to make sure you sit through, so there was a long time that I was listening to all of his songs,&quot; he recalled in a Q&amp;A session with the media after the preview. &quot;The writers chose which songs to assign in the story... but I also made some suggestions like songs to be matched up or medleys -- just to make it more [like a] musical and to thread all of them together.&quot;&quot;It&#x27;s quite challenging because you have to know the essence of the artist,&quot; he stressed. &quot;You have to know what he&#x27;s about... You have to understand and respect before you rearrange, because you have to pay tribute to the years of work that they did.&quot; <div><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/09/02/19/pipol-jose-mari-chan-the-little-drummer-boy-of-christmas">PIPOL: Jose Mari Chan, the little drummer boy of Christmas</a></div>And while Chan himself won&#x27;t be gracing the stage for &quot;Going Home to Christmas,&quot; the draft for the musical has received his blessing, as well as that of his children. When asked about his Christmas wish this year, the singer-songwriter spoke of &quot;peace and unity in the world.&quot;&quot;I really feel for what kind of future my children and grandchildren will inherit... There&#x27;s so much hatred in the world so my Christmas wish is for peace in the world, and unity,&quot; he said.As for his personal favorite among the songs he has written, Chan replied: &quot;Probably &#x27;Can We Just Stop and Talk Awhile.&#x27; It&#x27;s a song I wrote back in 1973-74. It somehow means a lot to me.&quot;Tickets to &quot;Going Home to Christmas&quot; are now available at TicketWorld, with prices ranging from P1,545 to P3,090.

Repertory Philippines is staging its first-ever original jukebox musical and it features the songs of no less than the country's "Mr. Christmas" himself, Jose Mari Chan.

Repertory Philippines is staging its first-ever original jukebox musical and it features the songs of no less than the country's "Mr. Christmas" himself, Jose Mari Chan.

'A fulfillment of my dream': Jose Mari Chan honored to have musical featuring his songs

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'A fulfillment of my dream': Jose Mari Chan honored to have musical featuring his songs

Karen Flores,

ABS-CBN News

Published Nov 05, 2024 09:00 AM PHT

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Jose Mari Chan

music

theater

Christmas

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