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Shakespeare at the Park

Jeeves De Veyra

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759816350424pic1.jpg" style="width:950px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Theatergoers at Ayala Triangle Gardens watch &#x27;Twelfth Night.&#x27; Jeeves de VeyraMake It Makati! and Ayala Triangle Gardens transformed its green spaces into a theater with its first Shakespeare in the Park.</div>I spent a Sunday in the park with other theatergoers to catch this charming open-air CAST.PH production of &quot;Twelfth Night.&quot;The idea began when Chris Mohnani, artistic head of Ayala Land&#x27;s cultural development for Makati, proposed staging a Shakespeare in the Park production — inspired by similar performances in New York’s Central Park — to director Sarah Facuri during the run of &quot;Into the Woods.&quot;CAST.PH, a theater company co-founded by Facuri, has been around since 2018 and was a great fit having staged Shakespearean plays alongside their regular script reading sessions. Director and CAST.PH co-founder, Nelsito Gomez, who has helmed five Shakespeare productions to date, chose &quot;Twelfth Night&quot; for its blend of humor, romance, and poetry.“I didn’t want to do &#x27;A Midsummer Night’s Dream&#x27; — that’s too obvious. &#x27;Twelfth Night&#x27; is fun, accessible, and still has some of the best Shakespearean poetry about love,” quipped Gomez.&quot;Twelfth Night&quot; is one of Shakespeare’s most accessible plays as it is a comedy of errors, cross-dressing, love quadrangles, and mistaken identities. It even inspired modern movie interpretations, notably “She’s The Man” with Amanda Bynes.Given that there were many teens and kids and the audience seeing Shakespeare for the very first time, CAST.PH certainly introduced the Bard in a friendly approachable way.  “Shakespeare needs a lot of help these days,” Gomez said. And help they did!Gomez’s version is entertainingly irreverent but always respectful. Snippets of Tagalog come out of nowhere and pop music interludes spice up the material.Who would have thought that remixing Shakespeare with Paramore, Donna Lewis, and a closing Backstreet Boys karaoke of “Shape of My Heart” could actually work? Even a duel was reimagined as the “Thrilla in Illyria,” a boxing match complete with the &quot;Rocky&quot; theme blaring in the background.There is a backyard and high-school project look and feel to the production. This was performed on a simple stage with a cloth backdrop seemingly hand-drawn by children with crayons. No costumes here as the company of players are dressed in contemporary clothing.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759816458804curtain.jpg" style="width:950px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>CAST.PH stages a modern-dress production of &#x27;Twelfth Night.&#x27; Jeeves de VeyraBut behind that DIY façade is a lot of backstage production mastery. That cloth background is used in interesting ways, including scenes where it’s used to bisect the stage as a wall. The players have microphones, so words came in loud and clear even where I was standing in the back.</div>The cast, led by Teia Contreras as Viola/Cesario, is a who’s who of local theater who gave their 120% and clearly having the time of their lives, with often wacky and slapstick takes on the material. The audience gamely reciprocated the energy of the cast with laughter and more unrestrained reactions, perhaps freed from the confines of a traditional theater venue.If there was one star that shone brightly in this production, it was the venue. It was an inspiring sight to see the stage in the middle of the greenery and trees with the audience on picnic mats and blankets chilling out on the grass with pedestrians and cyclists passing by on the walkways. CAST.PH was clever with staging this in the afternoon as one of the play&#x27;s key lines, “As day turns into night…”, takes on significance as the afternoon turns into dusk and the lanterns up in trees turn on in the early evening.Clearly there is public support for initiatives like this. Gomez beams that they have around 750 people in the audience during the three days of Make It Makati!’s Shakespeare in the Park including the first rainy day where they had to set up the stage underneath the Philippine Stock Exchange arch.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759816393523pic2.jpg" style="width:950px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Theatergoers at Ayala Triangle Gardens watch &#x27;Twelfth Night.&#x27; Jeeves de VeyraMake It Makati! and Ayala Triangle Gardens&#x27; Shakespeare in the Park is a great way to get people out to enjoy and appreciate the city’s few open green spaces. Here’s hoping that more of these open-air doses of theater make it to the cultural calendar in the near future.</div>

Picnic mats, city lights, and Shakespearean wit come together in CAST.PH’s charming “Twelfth Night,” the first-ever Shakespeare in the Park at Ayala Triangle Gardens.

Picnic mats, city lights, and Shakespearean wit come together in CAST.PH’s charming “Twelfth Night,” the first-ever Shakespeare in the Park at Ayala Triangle Gardens.

Shakespeare blooms in Ayala Triangle Gardens with fun 'Twelfth Night'

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Shakespeare blooms in Ayala Triangle Gardens with fun 'Twelfth Night'

Jeeves De Veyra

Published Oct 07, 2025 02:01 PM PHT

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Updated Oct 07, 2025 04:54 PM PHT

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Ayala Triangle Gardens

Shakespeare

Twelfth Night

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Make It Makati

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