“Panic at the Disco” is an essay series that unpacks the impact of the Center Theatre Group’s new production of Here Lies Love. The critical journey will explore the complexities of artistic depictions of traumatic events and cultural figures in history and how it impacts the community it represents. Donate to DIASPORAto support independent journalism and more work like this!
At Opening Night of Here Lies Love, I was talking to my friend — the lovely Ms. Carla Renata — as we walked to the afterparty. She said, “I can tell you are conflicted about this musical.”
“I just don’t think it was for the Filipino community,” I explained.
She agreed… and she ain’t even Filipino.
I can spare you my thoughts about the musical (instead, read them here) because I have a lot of them. However, a lot of things exist at once: I can disagree with all that the Marcoses stand for AND enjoy the fact that this musical is giving jobs to Filipinos and other AAPI folks. But do I agree that this musical should exist?
Probably not. As I sat there, I would go from clapping my hands to being angry to laughing to nearly crying. A lot of the time, I was just like, “Is this really happening?” Other times, it was giving “Springtime For Hitler” a la The Producers.
Out of all of the stories in the Filipino diaspora, this wouldn’t be a narrative that I would choose to showcase on the Broadway stage. Yet, the community is just forced to play the DEI cards that are dealt because it’s all they have. And the cards were dealt by a pair of white men.
Author and essayist Laurel Flores Fantauzzo pointed out that the criticisms that Here Lies Love has received since the release of the “concept album”, all the way to the recent Broadway production, have been coming non-stop. “I always read those critiques with great interest,” Fantauzzo admits. “David Byrne is the author of Here Lies Love and its music; Filipino and Fil-Am actors in Los Angeles are now the embodiment of the characters.”
She continued, “Here Lies Love keeps with the fact that the majority of Broadway authors are white. Most Broadway actors remain white, but Here Lies Love places a Filipino and Fil-Am majority onstage.”
Non-Filipinos telling Filipino stories isn’t anything new. Fantauzzo goes on to give us an example of colonizing of storytelling that traces all the way back to the “founding” of the Philippines. Antonio Pigafetta is the only documentation of early life in the Philippines — and that documentation is literally from a colonizer.
“What storyteller receives investment, and how much investment, in making and disseminating those stories?” Fantauzzo interrogates. “Pigafetta had the king of Spain. Who do Broadway authors have, and why?”
Playwright Nicholas Pilapil, whose play Luca & Uri is currently at The Victory Theatre Center in North Hollywood, says that in an ideal world, anyone could write anything, but it’s not that simple.
“If a non-Filipino is telling a Filipino story, they need to approach it with curiosity, humility, and care,” he said. “There’s a difference between telling a story about someone and telling it for someone. You can’t take shortcuts, and proximity alone doesn’t give you authority.”
Writer and producer James Tinsley agrees. “For stories revolving around underrepresented communities, it’s imperative that someone who is representative of that culture is involved in the creative decision-making of the project, but I don’t necessarily believe they have to be the writer.”
He continued, “Ideally, yes. A Filipino writer writing a musical about a Filipino family would make all the sense in the world, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a non-Filipino writer tackling the project – if and only if there are Filipinos influencing the storytelling in a meaningful way.”
That is part of the reason why I don’t mind that Snehal Desai directed Center Theatre Group’s production of Here Lies Love. He’s a non-Filipino, but as Pilapil said, he approached the project with “curiosity, humility, and care”, making a mindful effort to engage with the community. (He is also a fellow brown Asian, so there’s that.)
Even when Filipinos take the reins of creating an artistic piece of work draped in Filipino culture or identity that is seen by the masses, there’s an urgent, false idea of scarcity. It’s as if the entire community is automatically all-in, no matter what. There’s an overwhelming and oversaturated rally of support that puts the spotlight on the performer to represent the entire Filipino diaspora.
However, there is a huge difference between visibility and representation.
“I do feel like I have a responsibility to uphold the Fil-Am/Filipino community when it comes to stories I tell,” Tinsley said. “Representation is critical. For me, it isn’t just about putting Filipino people on the page or on the screen and saying “that’s it! We resolved a century’s worth of being unrepresented!”
It is nearly impossible to create a universal Filipino narrative that speaks to every single person in the community. Crazy Rich Asians bolstered representation for the Asian American community, but it was representative of a certain kind of Asian and/or Asian American story. The reason why it worked was that the story was universal. It was a romantic comedy that happened to be populated by Asians and Asian Americans.
“I find joy and responsibility in exploring stories about complex Filipinos — human beings,” Tinsley added. “Characters must be flawed, yes. But I feel responsible for exploring characters that are worthy of empathy.”
Fantauzzo makes an effort to uphold her responsibility to the community, but the word “community” can mean many things.
“I think of the word community the way my spouse thinks of the word future: it is always plural,” said Fantauzzo, “That is especially true for the multiplicities inherent in Philippine identities.”
When it comes to having a responsibility as a storyteller to represent a community, Fantauzzo literally homes in on individual experiences. She makes things universal by way of specificities.
“When I conceptualized audiences for my own three books, I tried to be capacious,” Fantauzzo said. “I imagined the Fil-Am who grew up with a family that refused to teach or translate Tagalog, and I also imagined the Taglish-speaking person on WhatsApp from Manila to relatives abroad. I imagined readers with other origins as also invited and welcome to the party, to paraphrase Elaine Castillo.”
At the same time, she doesn’t just assume that all her stories are right, and she often holds herself accountable if she makes mistakes or if her audience questions her. ”I feel those are my responsibilities,” Fantauzzo said. “Other individual artists must decide what their responsibilities are.”
“I don’t wake up thinking, ‘I must represent’,” said Pilapil about his responsibility as a storyteller. “I’m not a spokesperson. I’m a playwright.”
He continued, “But because of the body of work I’ve built, and how I navigate spaces as an artist, there’s an implicit responsibility there. It’s important to me to contribute AAPI/Fil-Am stories to the canon of American theatre.”
Pilapil admits he loves to lean into his responsibility when it comes to upholding the Filipino community. “That’s where the tension is. That’s where I’m willing to be honest and messy,” he adds. “Every time I try to write something that doesn’t engage with that, I think it’s boring — and I’m not interested in being boring.”
His play, Luca & Uri, which is playing now at The Victory Theatre Center in Burbank, started off as a gay love story with no specific ethnicity for the characters. By the time he was on his second draft, he had woven in Filipino folklore and mythology, which strengthened the narrative.
“The play still isn’t about being Filipino,” said Pilapil, “but there’s just something inside me that I can’t let go of writing about being Filipino.”
What is often mind-boggling is how no one ever asks about white creators: “Do you have a responsibility to represent your culture?” Fantauzzo also points out that no one ever asked a writer: “How has being raised white American affected your writing?”
“I think we should always remember, as Toni Morrison reminds us, that whiteness is not race-less neutrality, “she said. “It should also be named and questioned.”
Pilapil thinks it’s boring to have a narrative that just offers representation. His plays are more interested in interrogating. “I’m often critiquing the communities I’m part of — especially how we align ourselves with whiteness. That’s a real thing in the Filipino community, that aspiration toward proximity to whiteness.”
Fantauzzo agrees. “I think it can be important for artists to be disloyal to their communities when certain cultural codes or rules put individuals in danger,” she said, citing Grace Talusan’s memoir ‘The Body Papers’. “[The book] broke open a story of child sexual abuse. If she had not been disloyal to the Filipino values of family silences and of hierarchies where children’s voices are the least valued, we would not have her important book.”
As Pilapil points out, great art moves the needle and sparks conversation. Ultimately, plays, screenplays, films, music, media — all of it ends up being a marker of history. Art challenges dominant culture, shakes the status quo, and gives voice to the voiceless. “I think good art educates and agitates,” he said. “But I also think whose voice or pen is behind certain work and narratives matters a lot. Authenticity, authority, and truth are important.”
CTG’s Here Lies Love has this tension of being a Filipino narrative created by white men, but being executed by the audience it’s supposed to represent. The authenticity is there, but it is still tethered to white voices. David Byrne and Fat Boy Slim created an Imelda Marcos-inspired concept album with probably little to no engagement with the Filipino community when it was released in 2010. They were ignorant of the consequences it would have on people who were and are still reeling from the Marcos reign.
The musical ends inspired and mobilizes the audience with People Power energy — laban and all. But does it harm? Does it heal? Does it do both?
“I struggle to see how Here Lies Love can help heal those impacted by the Marcos regime, “ said Tinsley, pointing out that the Marcos family helped sink the Philippines into “an endless abyss of poverty. “
“Exploring [Imelda Marcos’s] character through the backdrop of disco stands to trivialize the eternal damage she and her family have done to the Filipino community,” he declared.
Fantauzzo says that every member of the Filipino community has been impacted by the Marcos regime. “The effects of the Marcos family’s murderous and plundering choices continue to this day,” she said.
As Fantauzzo points out, the Marcos regime created the “Overseas Filipino Worker” phenomenon, where working Filipinos go overseas for work because they will never earn enough money to thrive at home.
“It never has to be that way, if private businesses did not commit wage theft, and if government leaders did not steal from the public services Filipinos deserve,” explained Fantauzzo. “Young activists in the Philippines and in the [United States] are often warned that they are troublemakers risking death and imprisonment for their outspoken organizing — like the Philippine constabulary killed and kidnapped young people during Martial Law.”
Marcos, like all authoritarian figures, had a strong base, and he and his wife fed their voracious appetite for a lifestyle they couldn’t achieve. His supporters went on to back former president Rodrigo Duterte, who is equally controversial. In 2026, it has come full circle with sitting president Bongbong Marcos, the son of Ferdinand and Imelda.
“Every evil regime is propped up by cheerleaders,” Fantauzzo bluntly stated.
The artists need to hear the responses from the community and the audience. Pilapil thinks that anything that sparks dialogue in the Filipino community, which is often silent when it comes to talking about difficult issues, is good.
“Silence is often the loudest thing we’re saying to each other,” he said. “Talking about hard things can be like therapy. There’s a lot of trauma to swim through, but there’s also a lot of healing.”
As a Filipino American, Pilapil admits that he can’t fully grasp what it was like living through the Marcos regime. “Sometimes good and bad go hand in hand,” he said regarding the impact of Here Lies Love.
“It’s critical we have an open discussion because without one, Here Lies Love is just another example of white creatives colonizing underrepresented communities to their benefit,” said Tinsley. “In this era of vast disinformation, it’s critical that our community understands the harm the Marcos family has done to the Philippines.”
CTG’s production of Here Lies Love immerses itself in the idea of art as a means of political education and resistance. Tinsley insists that art is paramount more now than ever. The average person’s attention span is thinner,” he said. “The appetite for conversations about politics and resistance is weak.”
Art can often be a creative means to get messages to audiences. “That can leave a lasting mark,” Tinsley said.
Just look at Get Out, Pose, Ramy, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moonlight, Black-ish, Fresh Off the Boat, Star Trek, or anything that artists like James Baldwin, Ai Weiwei, Frida Kahlo, Kurt Vonnegut, or Norman Lear have created.
“Art is a living organ in the body politic,” Fantauzzo declares. “It is essential. Suppress or remove art, and we will suffer.”
Here Lies Love was not made for the Filipino community. It’s a Broadway show. The Broadway League‘s annual demographics report for 2024-2025 shows that the typical theatergoer was more than likely female, white, and had an average income of $276,465 a year.
However, the Los Angeles metropolitan area has the largest concentration of Filipinos outside the Philippines, so… if you build it, maybe they will come?
“Filipinos really show up when it includes us — and in doing so, we took it and made it ours,” said Pilapil.
Stay tuned for the final installment of “Panic at the Disco”!
Stay tuned for the final installment of “Panic at the Disco”: Read the previous installments of “Panic at the Disco” and review of Here Lies Love:
- “Panic at the Disco” Part I: ‘Here Lies Love’ and How Art About Political Trauma Can Harm and Heal a Community
- “Panic at the Disco” Part II: The Beauty and Glamour of Power
- The Conflicting Joy of ‘Here Lies Love’
