La Salle's 100 years in musical

Manila, Philippines - Proudly Green will take audiences on a song-and-dance trip through the story behind La Salle’s 100-year-old presence in the country. Tapping over 70 talents, the grand musical  to be staged on June 11 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City  is the centerpiece and opening event of the weeklong La Salle University Centennial Celebration.

To be presented in lyric theater format, Proudly Green will walk through the past by weaving in some of the most unforgettable songs in Broadway, pop, rock and gospel music that should illustrate the highs, lows and milestones, from the time the first three La Salle brothers arrived in Manila in 1911.

Taking up the directing cudgels for Proudly Green is veteran stage and television director Fritz Ynfante, who is a De La Salle High School alum himself.

According to Ynfante, who said that this project brought him out of semi-retirement, the musical will be epochal in nature, to be narrated in three acts that will unravel on several auxiliary stages and maximize an amalgam of video footages and live action.

“There will be nine angels in the musical, gossamer-like creatures that come back to earth without their wings to retell a beautiful story,” said Ynfante.

In the first act, rock songs will interpret the pioneering years of La Salle. Dark numbers plus ballet dances will accompany the dark times like the massacre that befell La Sallians in 1945 for the second act, while high-energy songs will depict such highlights as the time when females entered La Salle. In the culminating act, the spotlight will be on the next generation La Sallians, wherein their dreams for the future are expressed in a chorus — to fittingly end the show on a hopeful and high note.

Some notable names in theater and entertainment form part of the cast mostly made up of students and alumni representing the 17 La Salle campuses nationwide. Two of the angels are Lance Raymundo and JM Rodriguez. Rannie Raymundo, Isay Alvarez and Robert Seña, on the other hand, join the ensemble. The husband-and-wife tandem of Isay and Robert are not connected with La Salle, but “our son is attending La Salle this year,” the couple quipped.

Ynfante purposely didn’t saturate the cast with big names from the rich roster of entertainment acts that La Salle has had produced (the most high-profile of whom include Gary Valenciano, Ogie Alcasid, etc.), so as to not to draw the focus away from the musical’s central purpose.

The event is poised to become the biggest gathering of the La Sallian community, with an expected attendance of about 4,000. Through this extravaganza, organizers said that audiences will realize why all La Sallians are “proudly green.”

Tickets are available at the DLSAA office (523-6158) and SM Tickets at all SM Malls. Doors open at 4 p.m.