A Life in the Theater

Note: DULAANG UNIBERSIDAD NG PILIPINAS (or Dulaang U.P.) is now presenting its 40 th Season.  Founding Artistic Director Tony Mabesa, who directed its first play in 1976, is now directing King Lear/Haring Lear, opening on Wednesday, 7 October 2015.  He has announced that the production will be his last for Dulaang U.P. as a director . Upon his return to the Philippines in 1975 after studying and teaching in the United States, Antonio O. Mabesa initiated the formation of a campus-based theater season at the University of the Philippines.  With the help of Dr. Leticia H. Tison, then Chair of the Department of Speech and Drama, the first season of Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, or Dulaang U.P. as it has come to be known, was launched in 1976 with the production of Shakespeare’s “ Much Ado About Nothing ”, translated into Filipino by Lilia Antonio as “ Pagkahaba-haba man ng Prusisyon ”, at the Abelardo Theater.   The next production in the opening season was Amelia Lapeña-Bonif