For its third-season finale, Mad Child Productions stages Anna Ziegler’s ‘Boy,’ a play about gender identity, medical ethics, and the devastating consequences of decisions made in the name of certainty.
Words Randolf Maala-Resueño
Photos courtesy of Mad Child Productions
October 28, 2026
Some of the most unsettling stories begin with people who believe they know what is best for someone else. In Anna Ziegler’s Boy, a doctor’s conviction about gender, biology, and upbringing becomes the foundation of a life shaped by decisions made before the person at its center can speak for himself.
For its third-season finale, Mad Child Productions stages Ziegler’s contemporary play this November, bringing a story of identity, intimacy, and medical ethics back to Philippine theater. The production also marks a return for director Cholo Ledesma, who played Adam in Tanghalang Ateneo’s 2016 staging, the play’s international debut.
Set in the 1960s, Boy follows Adam, a child assigned male at birth whose parents are persuaded by Dr. Wendell Barnes to raise him as a girl after a devastating accident. Years later, the consequences of that intervention continue to shape Adam’s relationships and his understanding of himself. Loosely inspired by the life of David Reimer, the play examines the collision between personal identity and the authority of those who presume to define it.
Rather than treating gender as an abstract argument, Boy places its questions inside the intimate, often painful terrain of family, love, and self-discovery. Its central unease lies in the distance between what adults believe they can determine for a child and what that child must eventually live through. Revisiting the work as a director, Ledesma brings a new perspective to a role and story he encountered a decade ago.
Zoë de Ocampo leads the five-person ensemble as Adam, alongside Topper Fabregas as Dr. Barnes, Jam Binay as Jenny, Toni Go-Yadao as Trudy, and Marvin Ong as Doug. The creative team brings together established theater practitioners and emerging artists, continuing Mad Child’s commitment to giving young theatermakers room for experimentation.
The production follows a third season built around complicated journeys of self-discovery, from Emmanuelle Mattana’s Trophy Boys, directed by Jillian Ita-as, to Guelan Varela-Luarca’s Mga Binago ng Araw, directed by Monty Uy. With Boy, the company closes its season on a story that refuses easy answers about who we are, who gets to name us, and what happens when those answers are imposed.
Presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Dramatists Play Service, Boy closes Mad Child’s season with a difficult but necessary reminder: the stories we tell about other people can shape their lives long after our certainty has faded.
Mad Child’s “Boy” runs November 27–29 and December 4–6 at the Mirror Theater Studio in Makati City. For ticket details, visit here or through Ticket2Me.
