Filipino play 'Monkeys' wins Hollywood award

Yong Chavez | TFC News Hollywood

<figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i4JpI7qBPZw?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>Filipino-American actor Eugene Cordero has been steadily working his way up in Hollywood.He’s not only part of the Marvel Universe as a cast member of the Disney+ series “Loki,” but he is also a big part of the hit animated show “Star Trek: Lower Decks.”Cordero recently took time out from his TV commitments to play the lead in the Filipino stage play “Monkeys,” a workplace comedy.It tells the largely untold stories of real-life Filipino farm laborers in the 1930s.“To do it as a play, it was just nice to be on a stage like that again,” Cordero said. “It’s so rooted in our lives as Filipino-Americans that it doesn’t take much to get into the drama of it.”The play’s title, “Monkeys” came from the derogatory term that some racist American soldiers called Filipinos when the Philippines was still under American rule.For its writer-director Bernard Badion, “Monkeys” was a way to pay homage to the first Filipino immigrants who took care of each other, and fought for rights at a time when speaking out was dangerous.Badion wrote “Monkeys” originally as a TV series but found difficulty in getting support because of the lack of Filipino stories in Hollywood.“There wasn’t any history for anyone to pull from,” he shared. “I’m lucky that at the end of the year last year, I was like, I’m going to enter this scholarship at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and if I get it, I’ll do and luckily enough, we got it.”The play also tackles the U.S. laws in the 1930s that criminalized marriage between Filipinos and Americans.Mike Cabellon, who starred in the NBC series &quot;Mr. Mayor,&quot; was grateful for the opportunity to tackle some of the forgotten aspects of American history.&quot;To be able to sort of represent Filipinos on stage and also represent our collective history at the same time is a huge responsibility that I don&#x27;t take lightly,&quot; he said.&quot;Monkeys&quot; has received critical acclaim and its initial four shows at the Hollywood Fringe Festival were all sold out.The production also recently received the Hollywood Encore Producer&#x27;s Award and will return for another performance on July 14 at the Jaxx Theatre in Los Angeles.

A comedic play about Filipino farm workers in the U.S. during the 1930s has received a Hollywood award and will return for an encore performance. 

Filipino play 'Monkeys' wins Hollywood award | ABS-CBN

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Filipino play 'Monkeys' wins Hollywood award

Filipino play 'Monkeys' wins Hollywood award

Yong Chavez | TFC News Hollywood

Published Jul 08, 2023 11:00 AM PHT

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