Canadian musical inspired by Cebu dancing inmates

A group of Filipinos in Canada shed a new and “popping" light to life in prison with an interactive musical web series inspired by the viral video starring the “dancing inmates" from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines.   Titled “Prison Dancer," the musical series shown via YouTube features an Asian-Canadian cast bringing life to an RnB-pop repertoire originally composed by its director Romeo Candido.    An “award-winning transmedia producer and creator," Candido—a Filipino-Canadian—directed, wrote, and edited “Lolo’s Child," the first feature film by a Filipino to be featured at the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival in 2002.   Among the cast members of “Prison Dancer" is Mikey Bustos, a Canadian Idol finalist who has crossed over to comic television advertisements after making waves not only in the Canadian music charts, but also in YouTube for his “How to Be Filipino" tutorials.   Story   With an estimated running time of 13 episodes with around “eight minutes of three to four branching videos," this interactive web musical tells the jail time stories through Matt Wells, the known music and pop culture reporter (playing himself) who is assigned to report about the dancing Filipino inmates who became YouTube sensations.   The story takes the form of combined “faux documentary styles" and traditional musicals, where Wells “uncovers the personal, poignant, hilarious, and universal life journeys" of “prisoners" including:

• Ruperto Poblador a.k.a. Lola (played by Jeigh Madjus), who lets his boredom slip in his tiny cell by coming up with dance routines and song numbers that he performs discreetly with his gay minions, Oo oo (Joseph Seville) and Nana (Pierre Bayuga);
• Cherish (played by Catherine Ricafort), the Warden’s daughter;
• Christian (played by Bustos), Cherish’s secret love and the newest inmate;
• Shakespeare (Nicco Lorenzo), the resident poet; and
• Hookaps (played by Normal Alconcel), the prison hustler.