Max's stories

A stranger with stories to tell

[max-crawford]

“When the red curtain opens

A biography

Act 1. “Draw the Curtains!”

Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga or more famously known as simply “Lea Salonga” was born on the 22nd of February, 1971 in Ermita, Manila. She was born to her father, Feliciano Genuino Salonga and her mother Ligaya Alcantara Imutan and became a sister to her brother, Gerard Salonga. Mr. Feliciano was a naval rear admiral and a shipping company owner. For her first six years in life, she lived in Angeles City before moving to Manila. She was a kid who loved to sing with dreams bigger than the Earth itself.

Her childhood was already part of the opening act of her life’s play as at the early age of seven, she made her professional debut in the musical “The King and I” in 1978 with Repertory Philippines. A Filipino theater company. After “The King in I”, she managed to secure the title role in her next play “Annie” and acted in the play in 1980. By the age of 10, she was able to record her first album “Small voice” in 1981 and it was well received by the masses as it was certified gold here in the Philippines. She also made left and right appearances in various plays such as “The Fantasticks” and “Paper moon” from 1988 and 1983 respectively. Her early childhood was full of acting and theater as that’s what she loved doing. She was a performer at heart.

Throughout the 1980s, Lea Salonga was steadily gaining popularity as she was featured in many television projects from GMA radio television arts. She was a child actress at the time and following her first album’s success, she was given an opportunity to host her own television show and this was named “Love, Lea”. Lea also made appearances as a member of the cast for a teen variety show “That’s entertainment” hosted by the late German Moreno. Because of her amazing acting skills and innate talent for it, Lea received multiple awards from FAMAS (Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences) and Aliw awards. The latter awarded her three times for three consecutive years for being the “Best Child Performer” of 1980, 1981, and 1982. Talk about consistency! 

By 1988, Lea released her second album simply entitled “Lea” and in that same year, she finished her High School Education) at O.B. Montessori Center located at Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila. Lea also attended an extension program by the University of the Philippines College of Music that trains musically talented children and teens in Music and stage acting.

Act 2. “The Opening Act”

At the age of 17 years old, Lea auditioned for the role of the main character in the play “Miss Saigon” named “Kim”. In her audition, Lea chose to sing “Boublil” and “On my Own” by Claude-Michel Schonberg from the play “Les Miserables”. Because of her amazing singing ability, she was asked by the audition panel to sing “Sun and Moon” which impressed them. At the age of 18 in 1989, Lea was picked to play the role of Kim in Miss Saigon’s debut production held in London.

Lea Salonga was able to win the “Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical” in 1990 because of her successful performance as Kim in Miss Saigon. This made her one of the world’s youngest winners of the award which was a feat on its own. Also in the same year, she performed a homecoming concert in Manila named “A Miss Called Lea. In the following year, Lea won multiple awards from Theater World, Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk from playing the same role in Miss Saigon’s play on Broadway. In the 1992 Disney animated film “Aladdin”, Lea became the singing voice for our beloved Princess Jasmine. In 1993, she achieved yet another feat of becoming the first ever woman of Asian descent to be awarded a “Tony Award”. 

Act 3. “To The Center Stage!”

 “Les Miserables” has been one of the most well known plays worldwide and in 1993, for the broadway production of the play, Salonga played the role of “Eponine”, the daughter of the Thenardiers. When the 65th Annual Academy Awards happened in Los Angeles in the same year, Lea performed as Jasmine in the song “A Whole New World” along with Brad Kane. In the awards show, the song won a deserving, Golden Globe Award! With the help of Atlantic Records, Lea was able to release her self-titled international debut album. In 1994, she was able to partake in multiple musical theater plays in the countries Singapore and Philippines. She took the roles of the witch in “Into the Woods” and Sandy in “Grease” to mention. 

By 1995, Lea Salonga went back to the US to bring to life the role of an 18-year-old Vietnamese American adopted child named “Geri Riordan” in the television film “Redwood Curtain”. She proved herself to be still a busy woman as at the same year, she went back to the Philippines to act in the film “Sana Maulit Muli” along with Ariel Aquino Mulach or more famously known as Aga Mulach. Through this film, she was able to get her second FAMAS nomination as “Best Actress”. 1995 was also the 10th anniversary of Les Miserables and so, Lea flew all the way back to London to play Eponine in “Les Miserables: The dream cast concert” held at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall.

1997 was the year when Lea Salonga started making recordings and she started that off with her album entitled “I’d like to teach the world sing”. This album was well received by the Filipino people as the album reached gold sales in the Philippines. This album was then followed by the 1998 album “Lea…In heart” and the 2000 album “By heart”. These two albums were able to reach Platinum sales multiple times in the Philippines. 

In 1998, she again collaborated with Disney and became the voice of the Disney animated film character “Mulan” and the singing voice of the same character in the film sequel “Mulan II” in 2004. Lea moved to New York City, USA where she purchased her apartment at the age of 28 and owned it until 2013. In the same year, Lea participated and performed at a tribute concert held for Cameron Mackintosh entitled “Hey, Mr. Producer: The musical world of Cameron Mackintosh.” By the years 1999 and 2000, Lea played the role of “Sonia Walsk” in the “They’re playing our song” musical.

Throughout the years of 2000 to 2003, Lea Salonga continued on making multiple appearances in various kinds of platforms from TV shows, musical and nonmusical theaters, and films which led to her appearances in multiple awards shows as well. By the 10th of January, 2004, she married the love of her life Mr. Robert Charles Chien whom she met in “Flower Drum Song”. The same year, she also performed her all-Filipino concerts entitled ”Songs from Home” which made her win the “Entertainer of the year” award from Aliw awards.

Act 4. “The Climax”

2005 was the year when Lea Salonga reached international status as she started to tour the world. She conducted her first US concert tour and in the same year, she managed to perform to a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall. Because of her international ventures, Lea was awarded with a “Golden Artist” award from FAMAS. In 2006, she performed for the closing ceremony of the 15th Asian Games held in Doha, Qatar with the song “Triumph of the one” at the Khalifa Stadium.

Lea then proceeded to release her first studio album in 2007 entitled “Inspired” which gained popularity and got platinum sales in the Philippines. She was also awarded by the former president Gloria Arroyo with the “Order of Lakandula” for using her abilities to the benefit of the Philippines and its people. Lea made more appearances on the theater scene with the return of Les Miserables, Broadway on Broadway, Stars in the alley, and more.

By 2008, she became a columnist for the Philippine Daily inquirer. She wrote her column “Introducing: Lea Salonga, writer” and from then on, started writing more and more columns. Lea went on to do singing performances throughout 2009 with her appearance in the 95th anniversary special of Iglesia ni Cristo singing the song “Bayan ko” and the concerts “Lea Salonga…Your songs” for the 20 years of “Miss Saigon”.

Following her singing performances, Lea made an appearance as a celebrity judge for the show “Avon Voices”. Speaking of being a judge, she also became one of the judges to sit on the judges panel of the 60th Miss Universe 2011 held in Sao Paulo, Brazil which happened at the 20th of September, 2011

Lea Salonga continued on making more concert appearances as in 2013, she was part of the Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Concert Series. She also played as a mother in the concert performance of “Ragtime”. In the same year, she started her concert tour in the Philippines “Lea Salonga: Playlist” which was done to celebrate her 35 years of hardwork and dedication in show business. 

By 2014, she went back to making judge appearances to “The Voice” and “The Voice kids”. Throughout 2014, she continued touring around the world with multiple concerts. She made an American television appearance in 2016 with “Crazy-Ex Girlfriend” and another for the international premiere of “Fun Home” as Helen Bechdel in Manila.

Act 5. “The Curtain Call”

Lea Salonga’s career has been going smoothly even until the present. With her steady amount of appearances in the theater scene for the past 4 years, it proves that Lea has made her mark in the theater scene as a whole which she worked hard for since age seven. She’s currently living with her family and has a daughter named Nicole Chien. This year, Lea is planning to embark on another world tour on the 6th of April, 2022 entitled “Dream Again” which will start in North America. 

To many theater kids, Lea Salonga is one of the many theater actors and actresses that these kids can look up to. She’s the perfect example of one who’s passionate about their dreams whatever it may be. Once a small town girl, now one of the big names of show business, Lea Salonga is a woman of passion, pure talent, and dedication to her craft. A true performer.

[max-crawford]

“To the protagonist who’s starring a not-so-interesting story”

An Autobiography

Every protagonist has a story to tell that’s worth listening to. Either to get to know them or to get information about them, people listen to stories because they’re interesting and unique.

My story? It's neither of those.

Hi. I’m Jason Quiwa. You can call me “son” for short and this is my “not-so-interesting” life story.

I was born on the 7th of August, 2004 in Manila, Philippines to pure Filipino parents. My father’s name is Rodney Quiwa and my mother’s name is Cristine Quiwa. They’re both working parents with my father working as a Civil Engineer in Qatar while my mother is working as an Industrial Engineer here in our country. I am the youngest out of the 3 children my parents have and also definitely the cutest.

As a toddler, I am constantly surrounded by my relatives from both my mother’s and my father’s sides. My family and I live in my grandparents house here in Urduja Village, Caloocan City but by the age of 4 years old, we moved into the house just a few houses away from where we lived. This second house was my Uncle’s house that was supposed to be bought by my grandfather on my father’s side.

At that same age, I started my nursery school. The school was a small neighborhood school named Little hearts school and it was walking distance from our house. Kindergarten and Preparatory school came and I transferred to Shekinah Grace School of Caloocan. It’s another neighborhood school and it’s bigger than my previous school at the time.

Throughout my childhood, I was a street kid. I was the kid that went out at 4PM everyday knocking on all of my friend’s houses without shame and asking their parents if their kids could play with me. This made me well known by many adults that lived in our street.

By the time I hit 8 years old, me and my family moved back to my grandparents’ house where we previously lived. This was because conflict transcribed on my father’s side and we were affected by it. I also transferred schools yet again and this time, I transferred to Holy Redeemer School of Caloocan. A school that heavily implemented English as their mother tongue (and also the school I stayed in for 7 years!). At this time, I started learning the English language slowly. I watched movies that were in English and read books written in the same language.

When I reached 3rd grade, I was able to speak in English without any hiccups. Well of course there was room for improvement but nonetheless, it was considered as pretty impressive by many. That includes our principal at the time. I was often told stuff like “You’re a great speaker!” or “You’re a great example to students here in our school.” by many teachers which I appreciate a lot but looking back at it, man I don’t feel shame. Around the same time, I picked up dancing. I danced to a lot of songs and didn’t care if I looked gay doing it.

Speaking of the word “Gay”, that word was thrown a lot throughout my middle school years from 4th grade all the way up to 6th grade. Because of my “flamboyant nature” and being friends with girls more than boys, many schoolmates thought that I was gay and I often got teased for it. This led to me slowly questioning my sexuality but I never thought anything more than that at the time. I just thought everyone was being mean with their accusations. 

One scenario was back in 4th grade when our MAPEH teacher tasked us to group ourselves into two groups for a dance performance. Of course, the class separated into boys and girls and I was in the middle. I was asked by my teacher which group I would want to join and that made me think about which would be better. Despite me wanting to join the girls as they were my friends, I was peer pressured into joining the boys and I regret that a lot.

Anyway, back on track. Summer of 2017, I joined an English workshop with a friend which was a lot of fun! It gave me something fun to look forward to in the summer and every single day that I’ve spent in that workshop was always a great experience! Being able to commute and travel by myself under the bright sun was fun. 

By the middle of summer, the workshop ended and the school hosted a little ceremony celebrating the end of their first year of doing workshops. Us students from the English workshop got to perform a little speech choir performance and it was a great time.

7th grade came by and that was the year when I started to take my sexuality seriously. I was very conflicted about my own sexual orientation and through the process of figuring that out, I became pretty snarky. To shorten the long story, the pressure of finding oneself was too much and I will admit, I was hasty about finding myself and it didn’t do anything good but at least it gave me something to start with.

I transferred to St. Joseph College of Novaliches once I reached 8th Grade and after being stuck to the same environment for too long, it felt liberating to be introduced to another environment. It was scary of course as I didn’t know anyone and a full day of repeatedly introducing myself doesn’t help with the anxiety at all. But with all that anxiety, I was able to make an impact regardless.

Throughout my 8th grade life, I was constantly bombarded by invitations to clubs like speech choir, Cheer dance, and also to be the school’s representative for competitions. All of which I declined as I was new to the place and wanted to take my time and familiarize myself. One club I did join though was an English club where I met a friend that had this huge golden retriever-esque personality. His dorky personality made me fall for him but of course it didn’t work out.

As I continued my high school life with me moving on to 9th grade, I became more and more sociable and I started to gain more friends. 9th grade was my peak year because I met and befriended many people from different sections and grade levels. I also started venturing out to Cheer dance, speaking competitions like oratoricals, and hosting school awarding ceremonies. The same year, I finally came to terms with my sexual orientation and came out to my friends as gay but still kept it to my family. Overall, my last face-to-face school year was fun and it really made me feel like I’m living.

2020 came and I’m 16 years old at this time. Throughout the long summer, I met online friends, one of which was Persephone or Percy for short. She and I went to the same school but never crossed each other’s paths and even had a little “Your name”-eque situation. In the same summer, I picked up writing again and started to create original characters and short stories about them. This became a small hobby of mine as I wrote more and more.

Another year passed as 2021 came and this was the year when I came out to my parents about my sexuality. It was a hard fight between myself and my logical thinking but I did learn things about them that I never knew they had and this made me close with them. This was the year when I finally met Percy in real life for the first time! Our houses are near each other it’s quite shocking. As I started Grade 11, I came in with the goal of improving my skills and till this day, I am on that journey.

You see, I consider my story as something that isn’t interesting as I don’t have much to show. I don’t have any experiences that I think are worth talking about for people to learn from. Not to say that one’s life needs to have a traumatic or a wattpad kind of story, it's just that mine isn’t that much at all. Or well, yet. Sometimes, a story is all about its slow build up before the climax and maybe, that’s my kind of story.

[max-crawford]

“A concert-like performance”

A memoir

It was September of 2019 and I was in 9th grade. We were in the middle of a quiet, afternoon class and as expected, we were all very drowsy especially us in the back. The temptation of closing your heavy eyelids accompanied by the cold air passing the back of your neck feels like torture. As much as I wanted to sleep, I was pushing through because I didn’t want to be scolded by our teacher. I was looking at the seat mate beside me and he’s already knocked out. Seeing him just tempted me even more to sleep.

But I didn’t and boy, good thing I didn’t. Because if I did try to sleep I wouldn’t be able to anyway because a few minutes later, loud, stiff knocks came from the front door. The door creaked open and a voice of a woman came from the outside. She sounded very faint to me as I was seated at the very back corner of the room plus the background noise from the outside as the other grade levels took their breaks covered her voice. Not paying attention to what she’s saying, I looked at our teacher and saw her nod twice before letting the woman from the outside in.

She was actually a student. Well, a student that’s part of the student council. With a deep breath, she loudened her voice and woke every one of us up. “Good afternoon Grade-nine Courage!” Surprised from the sudden greeting, my seat mate jolted awake and sat straight up immediately. I giggled at the sight as seeing him relax right after sitting straight up was funny to see. The woman in front continued to speak as more of us sat up straight. “Ma’am can you go outside for a little bit? I want to talk to them privately po.”

Our teacher was a bit curious about why she needs to go out but we already know what’s the deal. After a little fun bickering with the teacher, she eventually got out of the classroom accompanied by other student council students that was with the woman earlier. As soon as the teacher closed the door, the woman went straight ahead to the point.

“So as we all know, next month will be the annual celebration of Teacher’s day.” As she said that, smiles formed in each of everyone’s faces including me as we were all excited for the celebration. “We are planning to host an event to celebrate it and we, the student council, are inviting students who want to perform for the event.”

As soon as she said “perform”, my classmate Heather immediately stood a little up her seat and looked at me and my other classmates Aliyah and Althea with a very excited expression. She looked so ridiculous at the center of the room as she looked at us so excitedly that I laughed. “Omg guys! Sali tayo dali!” She said to us, not even letting the woman in front continue what she was saying but I mean, enough said! That was all the information Heather needed to hear.

Aliyah, who was in the front, bursted out laughing. “Heather omg hahaha! Game ako dyan dali! dali!” She said as she jumped on her seat multiple times in excitement. Heather looked at Althea who was just seated right behind me and asked her with enthusiasm. “Thea sali ka?! Isasama kita here!”

Thea immediately agreed, even nodding as fast as she could! As I saw everything unfold, the woman in front was already listing the names of my friends. Then, I felt a hand tap my shoulder from behind and immediately heard Thea’s loud voice. “Isama natin si Quiwa!!” She said as loud as she could. You can literally hear the excitement from her!

Hearing my name, I immediately reacted. “Wait omg bat ako?!“ I genuinely didn’t expect to be included in the group and before I could even continue talking, Heather already put me in the list. “Ay oo si Quiwa! Ate pasulat den dyan sa list!” And in just seconds, my name is in the list.

The class was oozing with excitement, showing how much we want to celebrate Teacher’s day. After a few minutes of listing names, we got ourselves a dance group and the woman left the room. When our teacher came back, she asked what was the ruckus that she heard earlier about in which we played off as just the class being happy.

When classes ended for the day me, Thea, Aliyah, Heather and many more classmates commenced a little meeting. We talked about when are we scheduling our first practice and what songs we’ll use to dance to. We brainstormed like crazy and because of our excited laughs and screams, we got scolded a bit which was funny.

Fast forward to a few days, it was a friday afternoon and it’s the day of our first rehearsals! I remember being so excited to go into the school bathrooms and change into our rehearsal clothing and the other students would be looking at us, curious as to why we’re dressed in colore t-shirts, jogger pants, and rubber shoes to a day that isn’t P.E day.

After saying our goodbyes to our other friends, we headed straight to the place we rented out to practice in. Seeing ourselves in the wall mirror looking so cool with our clothes was fun and exciting! We didn’t waste time and immediately jumped in to our first song and we practiced like crazy! Hearing the loud bass from the speakers whenever a beat drops and feeling the vibrations in my chest made me feel so alive. We stayed there practicing until nighttime and even ate dinner at the McDonald’s near our school. It was a fun first day of our rehearsals but it doesn’t stop there.

Throughout the course of the following weeks, we scheduled our rehearsals even in the weekends which we were all okay to considering that everyone was having fun. We were remixing songs, making choreography, perfecting each step and changes, trying out different costume ideas, having a ton of fun! We even got visited by various friends who were not only from our classroom but also from other grade levels! Every rehearsal day was a fun, exciting, and chaotic day.

Then, the day finally came. October 5, 2019. The day of the event! High school students from all grade levels were gathered at the gym and every teacher of the school was present. Everyone is watching the event. As the prayer and opening remarks finish respectively, we were told to get ready and change into our costumes. We headed straight to the changing rooms beside the front stage and quickly got changed in the speed of light. In the background, we heard the emcees introducing the first batch of performers from younger grade levels. We got to see other performances and it was quite a treat to watch!

But after all of the performances, it was our turn. The emcees introduced our group and people cheered. We got into formation, the crowd got quiet, the music started and it was showtime. We danced like it was nobody’s business and enjoyed the performance. Everyone was cheering, jumping around! It felt like we were in a concert and we were the performers of it! When Twice’s song “Fancy” came in, we heard loud fan chants from the students watching us. They sang along the song and adrenaline filled my veins! When we ended our performance, the whole gym was clapping at us. Whistles, cheers, we heard everything. When we went back offstage, we celebrated our successful performance with one, tight group hug and us shouting in unison “we did it!”

[max-crawford]

Prompt: Write a paragraph with a character struggle with two conflicting emotions simultaneously.

“A message”

May 11, 2021.

Siscia’s hands tremble as he anxiously waits for Von’s reply. After the incident months ago, the two never talked to each other “ending” what the two had. But how can one consider that something has “ended” when it never really did?

“Do you really think he’ll answer, Lon? What if he ignores me?” Siscia’s shaky voice came out of Lon’s earphones. His anxiety growing every second that passes. “He won’t ignore you. He accepted your friend request earlier!” Lon’s energetic reply calms him a bit but not enough to put him at ease. As Siscia’s about to reach for his phone, a notification pops up in it’s screen.

A message from Von.

“He responded to me! He responded!” In shock, Siscia stands up from his seat to process what he just saw. “Go! Talk to him! You can do it!” Lon says in an excited tone. “No! I’m too scared to continue this!” He paces around the room as he exclaimed. “Okay look, you want to give him one last try right? A try won’t hurt so go do it! I’ll leave the call so you can focus alright?”

“Hey, wait!” Before Siscia could continue, Lon leaves the call ending it for the both of them. He sighs at the thought of being left all alone continuing to pace around the room to cope. Siscia looks back at his phone, seeing Von’s profile picture with a red dot below it. Amidst the nervousness and the anxiousness, Siscia smiles in relief at the thought of being noticed. Even after months of no interactions, Von didn’t mind that and replied to him.

“Okay… One last try…” Siscia says to himself before sitting down and replying back.

[max-crawford]

Ah yes, a place to let out stuff ig