Trumpets stages big comeback with 'The Bluebird of Happiness'

After a three-year hiatus from the local theater scene, Trumpets—Asia's first professional gospel theater group—will be premiering its original musical adaptation of “The Bluebird of Happiness,” based on a heavily symbolic 1908 play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck.

“Bluebird spent 16 years as an idea and took three years of preparation,” said Trumpets president Audie Gemora at the media launch in Greenbelt 5's second floor gallery earlier this month. “My first memory of it was as a Shirley Temple movie. I've been trying to get Trumpets to stage it to no avail—but when we closed down for our hiatus, I saw my chance.”

“Trumpets always aspires to do original musicals, and Bluebird is an original adaptation,” he added.

Jaime del Mundo, who did the book and lyrics of the production, said that because Trumpets is a Christian theater company, their plays will automatically have that one underlying truth that everyone shares.

“Although we don't want to bang people on the head with what we believe in, we like introducing themes like that into the plays that we perform and letting audiences absorb it at their own pace,” he said. “Since we believe that live theater can be life-changing, that is important for us. We like putting these things out there in ways that are palatable for our audiences to receive. Trumpets needs to do that, that's why it exists...without Trumpets, there would be no 'Bluebird of Happiness' production as we're doing it, and without that desire to share that truth, there wouldn't be a Trumpets.”

'Theater of experience'

The family-friendly musical follows Mytyl (Chimmi Kochet-Chua and Alessa Zialcita) and Tyltyl (Anton Posadas and Guido Gatmaitan), very poor siblings who envy all of the others in the village who have so many gifts and Christmas decorations on Christmas Eve. The fairy Berylune (Jennifer Villegas-dela Cruz) starts the two, along with their dog Tylo (Robbie Zialcita), on the path to finding the Bluebird of Happiness. Along the way, they are guided by Light, a candle (Carla Guevarra-Laforteza) and hindered by Night (Joel Trinidad) and the cat Tylette (Lynn Sherman) as they traverse many lands in search of the Bluebird.

In the preview, the main cast (minus Berylune) sang six of the songs from the musical. Trinidad and Sherman even did a little bit of a dance number, as their song was a tango tune.

Del Mundo was quick to defend the decision not to cast a popular celebrity in Bluebird (Trumpets was the first theater company to do so).

“It's about the theater, not about the actors,” he said. He would like to create a “theater of experience”' with the showing of Bluebird and wished to accomplish two things with this decision: the first was to make people aware that the Trumpets name means quality, whether or not there is star power. The second wish was to give talented theater actors who don't get enough roles “a chance to shine this time.”

Indeed, the roles of Tylo the dog and Tylette the cat were written with both Zialcita and Sherman in mind. They were cast before everyone else.

“Si Lynn Sherman, reincarnation 'yan,” laughed Gemora. “Kung papanoorin niyo yung Shirley Temple movie...kamukhang-kamukha niya [si Gale Sondergaard]. And to think it was done in the 1930s. She looks like her—although we changed the hair to make her look more cat-like.”

And in furthering the concept of the theater of experience, del Mundo assured the audience that the original play—which was five acts long, very symbolic (indeed, it was famous for this), and contained too many characters—was updated for a contemporary, action-oriented Filipino audience.

“We took the original magic from the play, but we wanted to see it in our terms,” said del Mundo. “The heavy-handed symbolism is gone...and from the original play, we kept the dog, the cat, and Light. The original had the dog, the cat, Light, Bread, Water, and so on and so forth.”

“One of the important things in doing a piece is that time has to run out. So we also decided to give them a time limit—they [the children] have to find the Bluebird of Happiness by dawn; that kind of adds to the excitement.”

“Saka maraming kanta,” chimed in Gemora. “Gustong-gusto ng mga Filipino yung kanta, kaya pinuno namin ito ng kanta.”

Child leads

“The joy of working with children is discovering talent and developing them,” explained Gemora. “And seeing them grow from childhood to pre-teens to teens to young adults—it is a joy. And here in the theater, the possibilities are endless for children.”

Twenty child extras—from the ages of six to 12—are slated to act in the musical, especially for the scene where the siblings and their dog visit the Land of the Unborn Children.


Indeed, when watching Guido Gatmaitan, Anton Posadas, Chimmi Kochet-Chua and Alessa Zialcita sing five of the six sample songs in pairs—and then together as a group with pitch-perfect voice blending—one can see what Gemora is getting at. Guido and Anton are 11 years old, while Chimmi is 12 and Alessa is 13; but even so, their presence of mind, professionalism, bubbly personalities, and impeccable chemistry with one another really shine through.

The four did everything to prepare for their roles, from attending the workshop to getting extra lessons on the side from voice coaches and their parents, to watching the Shirley Temple movie in order to study the attitudes of their characters.

“So you're all friends?” this writer asked them at their group interview.

“Yeees,” they answered, smiling and giggling.

“What about before this production—were you?”

“Nooo,” they answered, shaking their heads but still smiling and giggling. We just met, they say, but they feel like they've known each other forever. Alessa and Chimmi even squealed and pretended to cry, “Not fair! I'm not talking to you anymore!” when Anton said that his next role will be Pugsley from the Addams Family.

When asked if they were nervous for their first show, only Chimmi nonchalantly answered, “Somewhat.”

The four leads qualified for the roles of Mytyl and Tyltyl after a series of workshops and auditioning for the roles. Director del Mundo had nothing but good things to say about them.

“The main quality of Mytyl is that she's bossy,” said del Mundo affectionately. “And you can't get any bossier than Chimmi Kochet-Chua and Alessa Zialcita. They're perfect for the role.”

Enticing local audiences

And the biggest challenge of doing a production like this? “Trying to convince local audiences to come and watch,” said del Mundo, whose answer was punctuated with an emphatic “Yes!” from Gemora.


“We have all the elements of a really good show, but we do need the audiences to come and realize that, yes, there is wonderful homegrown stuff and wonderful homegrown talents,” added del Mundo.

“Ang tao, okay bumili ng ticket na P7,000 basta Wicked o Phantom of the Opera,” said Gemora to some sheepish laughter. “Pero pagdating nang Filipino musical—'uh, may discount ba?'

“So we have to fight that mindset talaga and be proud that Filipinos are creating musicals so that we can eventually...impress foreign audiences...and so that this can be sold abroad. Let's tell the audiences that Filipino musicals are worth watching, 'cause I think we've really grown a lot,” he said.

"I have this theory that I will stake everything that I own on," said del Mundo. "Theater automatically makes you smarter. Why is this? Because theater makes more demands on people watching...you don't have to believe everything you see, you just have to accept it. And by accepting all these possibilities, it automatically makes you smarter. So come to the theater, and come out smarter." — BM, GMA News

“The Bluebird of Happiness” will run from Sept. 27-Oct. 20. Ticket inquiries can be coursed through 901-4364, 891-9999 or www.ticketworld.com.ph. For more details, like the official Facebook page and follow the official Twitter account. #livemanila #TrumpetsBluebird