After their three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, 9 Works Theatrical returns to restage Jonathan Larson’s “tick, tick…BOOM!” six years after their original run.

Written by Rommielle Morada
July 24, 2023

What happens when you “stop the clock / take time out”, but the world keeps turning still? Seven years after a triumphant 2016 run and just two years after the acclaimed Netflix adaptation, 9 Works Theatrical (9WT) returns to the stage with more of a boom than a bang, staging Jonathan Larson’s semi-autobiographical rock musical, “tick, tick…BOOM!”

Opening their rehearsal doors to media friends, the preview followed by a short interview ultimately uncovered what was different this time around: “we’re older and we’re wiser and we’re bigger.” Despite the apparent upscaling, the cast’s astoundingly emotional performance of the musical’s concluding song, “Louder Than Words”, revealed that the production’s larger scale would not take away from the inherent intimacy of their common understanding of what it means to be an artist.

At the heart of it all, “tick, tick…BOOM”’s treatise is something that no creative can escape: it’s the anxiety of feeding your stomach or your soul. Inasmuch as the material was written and set in 1990, each cast member’s performance is still grounded in the struggle to balance one’s passion for creation with the pragmaticism needed for survival.

Featuring both new and returning faces, the play’s three characters have a pair of hand-picked alternates each, with eight different permutations scattered throughout its eleven shows. Reprising the role of Susan from the 2016 run is Tanya Manalang-Atadero, best known for her roles in Miss Saigon, Rak of Aegis, and Ang Huling El Bimbo. Alternating with her is the multi-faceted Kayla Rivera, recently awarded Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her work in Joseph the Dreamer. Manalang’s husband and leading man during their run of El Bimbo, Reb Atadero joins the cast as Michael, following his most recent performance in SandBox Collective’s staging of Duncan MacMillan’s Lungs. Alternating with him is another new addition to the cast, the multi-awarded Vien King, who bagged Best Actor in a Musical for two consecutive years under the LEAF Awards (2019) and the Philstage Gawad Buhay Awards (2020).

The musical’s central character Jon, however, is split between the well-awarded Jef Flores and musical theatre newbie Khalil Ramos. Flores, previously awarded the Philstage Gawad Buhay Best Actor for his performance of Jon in 2016, shares his character’s main passion: musical composition. Meanwhile, Ramos, known for his TV and film performances under GMA’s management (2 Cool 2 Be Forgotten, Dead Kids, Maria Clara at Ibarra) departs from his usual adolescent roles as he embodies and relates to Jon’s anxiety about turning thirty, wherein the crux of the whole show lies.

What’s interesting about Flores and Ramos’ alternating performances — and, in all truth, the whole cast’s performance — is how it’s informed by their own personal experiences, which offers the audience contrasting portrayals of each character. Flores, seven years after he first portrayed Jon’s anticipation of the end of his youth, admits that much of his portrayal is rooted in the anxiety of possibly passing the prime of his dream, “washing up” before having gotten his hands dirty in tumultuous compositions. Ramos, on the other hand, assumes Jon’s character at roughly the same age Flores did in 2016 — only now, his performance isn’t just informed by his being in his late-twenties, but by the experience of having been an actor under the pandemic. Candidly, Ramos shared: “I’ve been in this industry for twelve years, and it’s vastly changed in the past three to four years. [...] When we’re back to normal with all the new artists, who am I now? I’ve been here twelve years — what else can I bring to the table?”

The question of retaining relevance, or even achieving relevance in the first place in the industry haunts each artist, and the cast members are no exception to this. Sharing anecdotes about their own doubts and struggles, Manalang-Atadero admitted “When I play Susan [now], I feel like I’m not acting anymore.”

The show inherently hinges on the dynamism of opposing forces with each and every beat — peace or passion, dreams or real life, fear or love. While each pair isn’t necessarily dichotomous, the matter of having to sacrifice the life you want for simply a life hits too close to home for it to be ignored. Playing especially off of the fact that this is 9WT’s first show after the pandemic, the inherent mortality that colors “tick, tick…BOOM!” and Jonathan Larson’s creative legacy becomes all the more real, noting that Larson tragically died at the age of 35 the night prior to the preview performance of his masterpiece, Rent.

The realism that the show now has to balance, given the stimulus that the pandemic has provided both its performers and its audience, is reflected in the more detailed changes to this run. According to director Robbie Guevara, this run departs from the 2016 staging mainly in terms of its set. Whereas its earlier run had had an almost bare stage, with its cast relying on miming and narration, following the movie, “tick, tick…BOOM!” has inevitably demanded a fuller production, producing a semi-realistic set. Nonetheless, Guevara underlines that at the end of it all, the play’s direction aims still to honor its late creator’s original vision and advocacy of making theatre more accessible.

Despite its widened scope, intense marketing, and well-decorated cast, at the heart of 9WT’s staging is the inherent humanity in artistry, from which eternal hope — and eternal anxiety — springs.

tick, tick…BOOM! will be showing all weekends of August 2023 at 3:00pm & 7:30pm on Saturdays & Sundays, at the CPR Auditorium, RCBC Plaza in Makati. Tickets are now available via ticket2me.net. Grab yours while you can!

For partnerships & show buying inquiries, you may reach us via info@9workstheatrical.com, 7586 7105 or 0917 554 5560. For updates, follow us on FB & YouTube (@9WorksTheatrical), Twitter, Instagram & TikTok (@9WTonline).