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How Lea Salonga, Dolly de Leon got bitten by the theater bug

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Leah C. Salterio

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1723441217116IMG_6819.JPG" style="width:950px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Dolly de Leon (left) and Lea Salonga star in &quot;Request sa Radyo.&quot;</div>&quot;Drama belongs onstage, not in real life.&quot;With all the real-life family drama happening lately with the country’s two-time Olympic gold medalist Carlos Yulo, Broadway star, Tony Award winner, and Sir Lawrence Olivier awardee Lea Salonga emphasized that she is living a relatively &quot;drama-free, quiet and fulfilling life.&quot;To which her first-time co-star in the play &quot;Request sa Radyo,&quot; Dolly de Leon, butted in, &quot;Agree.&quot;The two actresses, who got the chance to perform abroad in a number of plays, films, and musicals, are working for the first time onstage.Asked by Tony award-winning costume designer Clint Ramos how the actresses were bitten by the acting bug, the ladies recalled how they started to make a name for themselves.&quot;I started doing theater before the bug actually bit me,&quot; Salonga shared. &quot;That made sense. It was weird, because I started so young, seven years old in &#x27;The King and I&#x27; for Repertory Philippines.&quot;&quot;At that time in my life, I didn&#x27;t have the ambition yet that I wanted to be in theater. I wanted to be onstage. My cousin, who was with Repertory Philippines, told my mother [Ligaya Salonga], to make me audition for &#x27;The King and I.&#x27;&quot;I remembered being taught a speech at the end of the show. There was a microphone at the floor of the CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) that goes up. I recited my speech into the mic even there were a lot of people in the theater.&quot;Salonga didn&#x27;t make the decision yet that theater would be her life until she went to join &#x27;Miss Saigon&#x27; when she was 18. She originated the role of Kim onstage in London&#x27;s West End.Back then, she was a first year Biology student at the Ateneo de Manila University. &quot;&#x27;Miss Saigon&#x27; happened. That became my mindset, sign, and confirmation that I would do theater.&quot;The same thing happened to De Leon. &quot;The bug never bit me until I was in college,&quot; she said. &quot;It was a lot of fun and games doing theater. I didn&#x27;t know I could make a career out of this.&quot;&quot;The first play that I watched in college was &#x27;Isang Dulang Panaginip&#x27; by Rene Villanueva. I was a costume mistress and all my batchmates were performing onstage. I was crying at the back because I wanted to do that. &#x27;Why am I here?&#x27;&quot; That was the time De Leon realized she wanted to become an actor. &quot;I was in UP already and I knew that was what I wanted to do. I&#x27;ll never forget my first play. It was incredible for me to be acting for the first time in a student production, with director Tony Mabesa, written by Floy Quintos.&quot;Her only line with three words at that time was &quot;Tigang ka talaga.&quot; Yet, that was a hit with the audience.&quot;Ang sarap ng feeling that people were reacting to you in real time. It&#x27;s a high. Ang sarap ng ganun. So I said, &#x27;This is really what I want to do.&#x27;&quot;De Leon has since acted in more than 30 productions, ranging from Shakespeare, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett, earning accolades for her performances here and abroad.Salonga experienced working with the likes of Zeneida &quot;Bibot&quot; Amador yelling at her. But she never took it personally. &quot;I heard that yelling so much,&quot; she said. “I was very young then. I learned a lot from watching Bibot Amador as an actor as well as a director. But maybe, some callouses built up. When I started working in New York, I was saying, &#x27;Oh my God, they are not yelling?&#x27;&quot;Meanwhile, De Leon welcomed the name calling or screaming she experienced from her directors. &quot;That&#x27;s the very thin part of shaping us to who we are today.&quot;&quot;I&#x27;m not saying that is the best method, but it made me strong and made me manhid. I will forever be grateful to my directors. That shaped me to the person that I am today.&quot;When it comes to the hardest that they did onstage, it was &quot;Sweeney Todd&quot; for Salonga, who&#x27;s returning to Broadway in March. &quot;That [Sweeney Todd] was rewarding,&quot; she said. &quot;The challenge is multi-level. One is the dialect, the Cockney accent.&quot;&quot;I made sure that is correct. I gave myself anxiety every night I had to perform &#x27;Sweeney Todd.&#x27; It helps for me in a way just to go through the lyrics as a seed exercise to make sure my muscle memory has it.&quot;For De Leon, the most challenging that she has done was &quot;Three Sisters&quot; by Anton Chekov. &quot;Maria is someone who doesn’t have much of an angst among the three characters, although she’s going through a lot,&quot; she said. &quot;Request sa Radyo&quot; is a play by Franz Xaver Kroetz, with Bobby Garcia as director and Clint Ramos as production designer.De Leon and Salonga will perform solo pieces in scheduled, alternating shows from October 10 to 20 at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Makati City.&quot;In &#x27;Request sa Radyo,&#x27; we don’t have co-actors, we only have ourselves to rely on,&quot; De Leon pointed out. &quot;I&#x27;m excited. If ever, the only one who will be with us is the lighting guy.&quot;

The two award-winning actresses star in the upcoming play 'Request sa Radyo.'