KD Estrada on lessons from ‘Bagets The Musical,’ projects outside loveteams

While performing a scene in “Bagets The Musical,” KD Estrada’s guitar string prop suddenly broke.

This is one of the moments that shows the difference between performing live in a stage play and performing onscreen. On stage, there is no take two and that’s the lesson KD learned from experiencing both worlds.

“Last night, while I was doing ‘Bagets,’ I had a scene. I was strumming the guitar, and one of the strings broke,” recalled the singer-actor during Star Magic’s Spotlight presscon. “Hindi siya rinig na gitara, but it’s like a prop lang na parang kunwari tumutugtog ako, but it totally broke in front of me. Like yung string tumama sa cheek ko. But you just go with it parang i-acting mo na lang.”

“There’s no take two. So, whatever mistake you make, just roll with it or just what I always tell myself, if you’re panicking, like do it on the inside. It comes with the job din talaga because when you do live, you really have to know your material. You really have to know your part. It’s a kind of discipline that you must take with you. And it also translates (on screen) when you do film work or you do TV stuff,” said he.

KD Estrada with ‘Bagets The Musical’ cast. He portrays Arnel in the musical with Ethan David of the P-pop boy group GAT as his alternate. The role was originally played by Raymond Lauchengco in the 1984 coming-of-age movie.

KD portrays Arnel in “Bagets The Musical,” a role he shared with Ethan David of the P-pop boy group GAT. It was originally played by Raymond Lauchengco in the 1984 coming-of-age movie of the same title, directed by Maryo J. de los Reyes, which also stars William Martinez, Herbert Bautista, J.C. Bonnin and Aga Muhlach.

The other cast members and alternates in the musical include Andres Muhlach, Mico Hendrix Chua, Jeff Moses, Sam Shoaf, Milo Cruz, Migo Valid, Noel Comia Jr. and Tomas Rodriguez. The show is set to close on March 22 at the Newport Performing Arts Theater. It is a production of Newport World Resorts with The Philippine STAR and VIVA Communications. The show is staged by PETA Plus and presented in cooperation with Sun Life Philippines, supported by RC Cola and Chippy.

It follows the journey of five teenage boys as they navigate adolescence while dealing with family and friendship issues, as well as matters of the heart.

“Since it has five male leads, it tackles the concept of masculinity, especially in the ‘80s. Parang you have to do this to be macho, you have to do this to be a real man. But the real lesson is taking responsibility for your actions and taking accountability and standing up for what is right. Yun talaga ang pagiging quote and quote lalaki like a real man,” KD mused on the takeaways from the musical.

From left: Rising theater actors Vino Mabalot, Sheena Belarmino and KD at the presscon for Star Magic Spotlight.

Photo from KD’s Instagram page

Meanwhile, KD hoped to work on a future project with his love team Alexa Ilacad after they recently pursued solo projects individually.

“I’m hoping,” stated KD. “It depends, like there are times kasi, like love teams, they’re not really working together anymore, and that’s not because we don’t want to work with each other. It sometimes just changed.”

“And other things come our way also. So, I’m hoping that I get to work with her again this year. But I’m OK with just working with myself muna and she can do her own thing. Because we’re both happy naman. What’s important naman is na kaming dalawa we’re like super OK like super close kami, but wala eh, life happens and work happens.”

KD was joined by rising theater talents Sheena Belarmino and Vino Mabalot (of “Spring Awakening”) during the presscon.