The Glass Slipper Still Fits

REP’s Cinderella: A Tale of the Glass Slipper gives a familiar fairy tale a brisk theatrical makeover, but its real trick is introducing young audiences to the magic of live performance.

Words Randolf Maala-Resueño
Photos courtesy of Repertory Philippines
September 24, 2026

Radson Flores as the Prince and Katie Bradshaw as Cinderella | Photo from Repertory Philippines

There is only so much you can do with a glass slipper.

Cinderella is one of those stories so deeply lodged in pop culture that its plot arrives pre-spoiled: cruel stepmother, impossible chores, magical makeover, royal ball, lost slipper, handsome prince. By now, the pumpkin has practically filed for retirement.

So what happens when Repertory Philippines’ Repertory Theater for Young Audiences (RTYA) stages it again?

Katie Bradshaw as Cinderella | Photo from Repertory Philippines

With Cinderella: A Tale of the Glass Slipper, the answer is recalibration. Written by Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman, and directed by Joy Virata and Cara Barredo, the musical trades spectacle for pace, personality, and the oldest theatrical technology there is: making an audience believe.

This is not Disney. It is not the Grimm version either. Vogt and Friedman’s Cinderella comes with her own theatrical ecosystem, including Putterman, a mischievous rat who becomes her unlikely ally. It is a small but smart adjustment. Suddenly, Cinderella has a relationship that isn’t built around a prince. The romance remains, but it is no longer the only escape route.

Cara Barredo as the Fairy God Mother | Photo from Repertory Philippines

The production’s greatest challenge, however, is also its greatest advantage: its audience already knows the story. For children encountering Cinderella for the first time, the familiar beats can feel enormous. For everyone else, they can feel like déjà vu in a ball gown.

The question, then, is not whether Cinderella can surprise us. It is whether it can make us care about the telling.

RTYA understands that the answer often lies beyond the script. Costumes, puppetry, projections, choreography, music, and lighting become the vocabulary through which a well-worn story is made immediate. The stage does what a screen cannot: it transforms in front of you.

(L-R) Paul Atienza as Stepsister 2, Pinky Marquez as Stepmother, and Arielle Magno as Stepsister 1 | Photo from Repertory Philippines

And that may be the production’s most important magic.

RTYA has spent three decades introducing young audiences to theater, following a larger REP tradition of cultivating artists and audiences since 1967. Its mission makes Cinderella more than another fairy tale revival. It is, in its own way, audience development disguised as a musical.

The first critical response to the production has already questioned whether this Cinderella sufficiently escapes its familiar path. Fair criticism. There is little point pretending the slipper has suddenly been redesigned.

Radson Flores as the Prince and Katie Bradshaw as Cinderella | Photo from Repertory Philippines

But perhaps originality is the wrong measuring stick here.

For a child sitting inside a theater, watching actors sing, move, transform, and tell a story in real time, the novelty is not necessarily Cinderella. It is ‘theater’ itself.

The slipper may be familiar but the experience isn’t.

For show dates and ticket sales, follow Repertory Philippines and RTYA on their Instagram.