Bongga ka, Bobby Garcia!

He has staged numerous plays, musicals, and concerts in the Philippines and around Asia, and currently a West End musical is in the works, plus two local musicals and a new theatrical company all at the same time. Known to be a strict and controlling director, and a kind and generous friend, anyone who is fond of watching theater in the country is aware of this man’s talent. Here are 10 things you should know about Bobby Garcia. 

1. Direk Bobby was able to persuade Aiza Seguerra to wear a one-piece swimsuit (in Rock of Ages) and Calvin Millado to wear a a butt-exposing corset and six-inch heels (in The Rocky Horror Show.) “I don’t think I’ve ever worked with someone who has not trusted what I think they should do in a show,” he says.

“The one thing I’m really particular about, work-wise, (is that) my rehearsal environment is a safe environment. It’s safe for all the actors to come in, make mistakes, look stupid, and not be embarrassed about it,” he explains. He doesn’t allow photo- or video-taking in his rehearsals, and people not part of the cast or production who don’t have to be at rehearsals are not allowed inside. He says he’s never worked with an actor with a huge ego. “I always start rehearsals saying — and it’s half-jokingly — ‘Hey, there can only be one diva in this rehearsal room and that’s me.’”

2. He was unwillingly dragged by his parents to his first theater experience when he was seven years old. He instantly fell in love with it.

He was in London with his family and was brought to see The King and I. His mom had told him he had to sit still for two hours and he just thought how awful that would be. “But when we sat down and the overture started playing, I didn’t move. I was so mesmerized by the show. At the end of the show I didn’t even want to leave the theater,” he recalls. He is now 43. “I’ve never done anything else for work.”

He earned his communications degree from Fordham University and his master’s in directing from University of British Columbia. He was already directing plays abroad when he decided to come home to Manila to stage Rent, but to do so, he had to form a company. So, Atlantis Productions was born. “That was just supposed to be a comeback, do Rent, go back type of thing. But it was such a big hit, it just opened so many doors and there was sort of a demand. So I decided, you know what, I’m gonna get this going and try to build this theater company. Luckily, here we are, 13 years later.” On why he prefers the world of theater over movies: “I like the fact that the performers are breathing in front of you and you share that moment with them in a theater, you can’t pirate that and you can’t replace that.”

3. The most important lesson from his parents: “I was never allowed to say I was bored.”

“My mom would always say there’s so many things you can create or think of doing, that in this life, you can never be bored,” he explains. His mother Milagros, a Spanish teacher turned housewife, died of cancer in 2009; while his father Roberto, who owned a radio station, passed away a year and a half before that due to old age and pneumonia. “You sort of try to condition your mind to knowing that every minute is closer to losing your parents, but when it happens… you’re still not prepared for it,” he says. To this day, he and his older sister Didi take that lesson to heart. “Up to now, I never sit there and say, like, ‘What’s there to do?’ My mind is immediately, ‘Oh, what can I do?’ rather than, “Oh, there’s nothing to do.’” 

4. Direk Bobby in numbers:

7: Number of staff members in Atlantis. “But that’s when we’re not in production mode. When we’re in production we can scale up to 200.”

240: Number of hours it takes to rehearse a show. “Eight hours a day, six days a week, for around five weeks. From when I first read the script to when we open, it can take anywhere from one to two years.”

2: Terrabytes is the size of his external drive devoted purely to songs.

3: Number of years he has been practicing Bikram yoga.

500-plus: Estimated number of plays he has watched in his lifetime.

5. On the notion that there is no money in theater: “We can’t afford failures. Which is why we work so hard so we can make sure the shows are successes.”

He says he is really fortunate to own a theater company and has the chance to work abroad, but that he cannot impose what he would do on theater actors trying to earn a living. “I always say, you think of that person in a tollbooth who hates their job but they have to sit there and do the job because they need to work. We’re so lucky, we get to do what we love to do,” he shares. He explains that it’s not that theater pays so little, it’s that only a limited number of shows can be sustained. “We don’t have the audience to sustain that long a run. That is the issue. So doing 15 shows, the money ends up being so little. But if we paid our actors what we paid them and did 150 shows, they would be so happy!” 

6. Direk Bobby moved to New York City in 1987, at the time the fear of AIDS was at its peak. “I don’t know that fear is always necessarily good, but I know for me at that point, it worked for me.”

“I was reading up as much as I could and really following what people were saying. It was a death sentence basically back then,” he says of what was called the “gay plague.” He was still a student when he moved there, wasn’t even of legal age yet, and shares that through the ‘80s and ‘90s, many people who were in NYC ahead of him were just passing away and there was no stopping it. “It’s different now with kids, the fear is not there anymore. Which I can appreciate also because fear is such an awful feeling. But at the same time it doesn’t force you to learn, read up, protect yourself.”

7. On critics and bad reviews: “I have no desire to read stuff that someone else is writing about my work, who wasn’t a part of the process that was fulfilling to me.”

“I don’t read reviews. Even good ones. I hardly talk about my work after it’s done,” direk Bobby reveals. “I’ve always said that what is important to me is the journey of creating the show, and that everyday rehearsal process is precious. That’s my fulfillment eh. So if I get to opening night and I’m fulfilled, I have no need to find affirmation anywhere else.” He says that when he was starting out, he would read reviews, but it naturally progressed to this idea of self-fulfillment. He only discusses his work with friends who have seen his shows, and another thing that is important to him is that the story is clear. “Appreciating is such a matter of taste, and taste is very different.”

He’s done reruns for plays such as Avenue Q, but says, “What I wouldn’t do is go back and revisit a show and try to restage it a new way, I’m really good about moving on that way.”

8. On love and relationships: “If I were to choose right now between devoting time to focus on a relationship or time to do my work, I’d choose my work right now.”

When asked if it’s true that extremely creative minds have complicated love lives, he says: “I don’t think work translates into personal life. Like my friendships, I’m able to not bring my work into it.” What’s difficult for him is that he is never in one place for more than three months, since he is constantly traveling and working. “It would be so insensitive for me to start a relationship with anyone and then have to leave in three months. Why would I do that to someone?” He mentions that “art is a jealous lover” and says he is certain he’ll want a relationship at a certain point in his life. For now, if he does get into a relationship, he’d have to find someone that is willing to leave everything and travel with him. “P.A. na yun,” he says laughing. 

9. Direk Bobby’s list of plays everyone must see in their lifetime:

1. Rent: “I think it was really groundbreaking when it came out and I think it pushed musicals to the next level, how they were structured, who they catered to, and what they were about.”

2. Book of Mormon: “It is really so well written. It’s so irreverent, I don’t know that it could ever be done here. Ultimately its message is so wonderful, whatever religion you want to believe in, if it makes you a better person, then it’s okay.”

3. Sunday in the Park with George: “I tell myself that is my retirement musical. It’s so hard to do! Once I’ve done that I can retire na.”

4. Sweeney Todd: “It’s an amazing and visual musical.”

5. Les Miserables: “It has everything. Beautiful score, sweeping story, and really, really interesting characters.”

10. After doing around 30 plays in the span of 20 years, direk Bobby is finally doing his first original Filipino musical in 2014 titled Bongga, using the songs of Hotdog.

“We’ve started work now and we’re not going to open until 2014. We met with boss Vic (del Rosario) and we want to get it right. They’re great songs and I think we can tell a great story,” he reveals. He recently formed a new company in partnership with Viva called Viva Atlantis Theatricals and aside from providing more shows every season (“to provide people with a lot of work,”) they’re set out to do original Pinoy material. “I know people who don’t agree with the Phantoms and the Mamma Mias coming in, because it takes away work, they say. I’m from a whole different point of view. I think it’s good for everyone to have lots of shows. The more shows are on and the more theater becomes a habit, the more success we will all have in the future.”

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So many people have no interest in theater. Direk Bobby says that it has to start when you’re young, and it should be parents bringing their kids to the theater. “It can become a wonderful thing to introduce to the kids, and it can be a part of their lives,” he says. “For many years I’ve heard, ‘Oh, theater is becoming a dinosaur,’” he shares. “I’ve never agreed with that. I don’t think theater will ever die, I think it will continue to grow, especially here.” We can take our cue from direk Bobby: things we are extremely passionate about that other people might be putting down, we should keep on believing in and fighting for. 

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Thank you for all your letters! You can reach me through askiamsuperbianca@yahoo.com or through Twitter @iamsuperbianca.