Canada's Filipino-est city is home to a new all-Filipino-Canadian musical

Joseph Sevillo never thought he'd write a musical. Back when he was a kid in Winnipeg, he never even thought he'd be in a musical. 

In fact, the veteran musical-theatre actor started performing by accident.

"I got tricked into a dance program in Grade 8 at Grant Park High School," Sevillo says. "I was a straight-A student. I thought I would be a lawyer or work for the government. I always say that the industry chose me."

That turn of events led him to a career on stages across the country. At 13, he landed his first role, in the 1997 production of South Pacific at Winnipeg's Rainbow Stage, and then it was nine years of performing in Toronto. Now, he's returned to Rainbow Stage, to debut his original production, Ma-Buhay! A New Musical.  

Ma-Buhay! is the story of three young Filipino contestants looking for glory in a major singing competition while they wrestle with their demons. The trio — Celina (Andrea Macasaet), David (Daren Dyhengco) and Honey (AP Bautista) — reflect the struggles and cultural issues that Sevillo sees in the Filipino community, including fat-shaming, colourism and religiously motivated homophobia. The music is pop-inspired and includes both familiar FM classics and original compositions in English and Tagalog.

Ma-Buhay! also marks three milestones for Rainbow Stage: it's the first show of the 70th season, its 150th show overall, and the first original production developed with its theatre company. Not that it ever occurred to Sevillo when he pitched the musical.

"The 70th anniversary, 150th show — that was not even in my psyche," he says. "I wasn't counting the shows.… I was just at the right place at the right time."

But the road to this point has been long. Sevillo spent seven years working on the script and stopped to work on other projects along the way. 

He says one of the things that drove him to write Manitoba's first all-Filipino musical was the lack of visibility for his culture in the medium he loves. He was inspired, in part, after landing a role in the all-Filipino musical web series Prison Dancer.

"I felt exhausted in this industry because I was working extra-hard to fit in a box that was never made for me," Sevillo says. "It was the first time I was playing a Filipino. Most of my years, I was playing a Puerto Rican or Vietnamese or random gay character — nothing Filipino."

With no formal training in musical composition or scripting, Sevillo channelled the heartache of a breakup in 2017 and began work on what he then called "The Filipino Musical." And he hoped to tap the wealth of Filipino talent in Winnipeg.

Among the star-studded cast is Winnipeg native Andrea Macasaet, fresh off her role as a principal in Six: The Musical on Broadway, and Miss Saigon star Ma-Anne Dionisio.

Macasaet returned from Broadway just in time to be cast in Ma-Buhay!, which also felt like destiny, and played a role in the early stages of the musical.

"Of the first three songs that [Sevillo] wrote, I had the privilege of doing the demo for one of them, which is still in our show now," she says. "Now, it's the best version it could possibly be." 

Dionisio — a musical-theatre veteran who toured the world with Miss Saigon and Les Misérables — got her start in a singing competition not unlike the one in Ma-Buhay! She gets teary-eyed talking about how much the showmeans to both her and the Filipino Canadian community.

"It just doesn't happen," she says. "I've played many roles where you have to find the character within that character, but it's not me. I am honoured and grateful to see a story that is being told from someone's truth that represents, as much as it could, their culture and their journey."

Given that Manitoba is home to Canada's largest Filipino population per capita, Sevillo felt a celebratory, distinctly Filipino project like Ma-Buhay! was long overdue there. He hopes the musical can both express his personal experiences with his culture and educate non-Filipinos.

"'Mabuhay' means 'to welcome,'" he says. "It's a form of greeting in Tagalog. The show is about welcoming Filipinos and non-Filipinos to the theatre. There is an innate connection to emotions in our culture. We're not a stoic people — we love to express and welcome people."

But the title takes on extra meaning with the hyphen, Sevillo explains, following the death of his mother in 2022. She and Sevillo co-wrote a song for the musical before she died.

"The way that I separated the 'ma,' it then means 'mother' and 'life,'" he says. She was my biggest cheerleader, keeping me afloat during the hardest times of this process. On the first day of rehearsal, I broke down weeping. It's a very powerful feeling."

Sevillo hopes Ma-Buhay! can fill a niche that wasn't there for him when he discovered his passion for dance and theatre, and inspire generations of Filipino youth.

"I really opened up the blinders on what is possible, and the universe supported my journey," he says. "Whatever your dream is, you do it on your own terms and in your own way."

Ma-Buhay! A New Musical runs until July 14 at Rainbow Stage (inside Kildonan Park) in Winnipeg.