T H E N AT I O N A L

A RT I S T I N
T H E AT E R
DAISY H. AVELLANA
National Artist for Theater (1999)
(January 26, 1917 – May 12, 2013)

Daisy H. Avellana, is an actor, director and writer. Born in Roxas City, Capiz on January
26, 1917, she elevated legitimate theater and dramatic arts to a new level of
excellence by staging and performing in breakthrough productions of classic Filipino
and foreign plays and by encouraging the establishment of performing groups and the
professionalization of Filipino theater. Together with her husband, National Artist
Lamberto Avellana and other artists, she co-founded the Barangay Theatre Guild in
1939 which paved the way for the popularization of theatre and dramatic arts in the
country, utilizing radio and television.

She starred in plays like Othello (1953), Macbeth in Black (1959), Casa de Bernarda
Alba (1967), Tatarin. She is best remembered for her portrayal of Candida Marasigan in
the stage and film versions of Nick Joaquin’s Portrait of the Artist as Filipino. Her
directorial credits include Diego Silang (1968), and Walang Sugat (1971). Among her
screenplays were Sakay (1939) and Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (1955).
ROLANDO S. TINIO
National Artist for Theater and Literature (1997)
(March 5, 1937 – July 7, 1997)

Rolando S. Tinio, playwright, thespian, poet, teacher, critic, and translator marked his
career with prolific artistic productions. Tinio’s chief distinction is as a stage director
whose original insights into the scripts he handled brought forth productions notable for
their visual impact and intellectual cogency.

Subsequently, after staging productions for the Ateneo Experimental Theater (its
organizer and administrator as well), he took on Teatro Pilipino. It was to Teatro Pilipino
which he left a considerable amount of work reviving traditional Filipino drama by re-
staging old theater forms like the sarswela and opening a treasure-house of contemporary
Western drama. It was the excellence and beauty of his practice that claimed for theater a
place among the arts in the Philippines in the 1960s.

Aside from his collections of poetry (Sitsit sa Kuliglig, Dunung – Dunungan, Kristal na
Uniberso, A Trick of Mirrors) among his works were the following: film scripts for Now and
Forever, Gamitin Mo Ako, Bayad Puri and Milagros; sarswelas Ang Mestisa, Ako, Ang Kiri,
Ana Maria; the komedya Orosman at Zafira; and Larawan, the musical.
WILFRIDO MA. GUERRERO
National Artist for Theater (1997)
(January 22, 1910 – April 28, 1995)

Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero is a teacher and theater artist whose 35 years of devoted
professorship has produced the most sterling luminaries in Philippine performing arts
today: Behn Cervantes, Celia Diaz-Laurel, Joy Virata, Joonee Gamboa, etc. In 1947, he
was appointed as UP Dramatic Club director and served for 16 years. As founder and
artistic director of the UP Mobile Theater, he pioneered the concept of theater campus
tour and delivered no less than 2,500 performances in a span of 19 committed years of
service. By bringing theatre to the countryside, Guerrero made it possible for students
and audiences, in general, to experience the basic grammar of staging and acting in
familiar and friendly ways through his plays that humorously reflect the behavior of the
Filipino.

His plays include Half an Hour in a Convent, Wanted: A Chaperon, Forever, Condemned,
Perhaps, In Unity, Deep in My Heart, Three Rats, Our Strange Ways, The Forsaken House,
Frustrations.
HONORATA “ATANG” DELA RAMA
National Artist for Theater and Music (1987)
(January 11, 1902 – July 11, 1991)

Honorata “Atang” Dela Rama was formally honored as the Queen of Kundiman in 1979, then
already 74 years old singing the same song (“Nabasag na Banga”) that she sang as a 15-year old
girl in the sarsuela Dalagang Bukid. Atang became the very first actress in the very first locally
produced Filipino film when she essayed the same role in the sarsuela’s film version. As early as
age seven, Atang was already being cast in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueño de un
Vals, and Marina. She counts the role though of an orphan in Pangarap ni Rosa as her most
rewarding and satisfying role that she played with realism, the stage sparkling with silver coins
tossed by a teary-eyed audience. Atang firmly believes that the sarswela and the kundiman
expresses best the Filipino soul, and even performed kundiman and other Filipino songs for the
Aetas or Negritos of Zambales and the Sierra Madre, the Bagobos of Davao and other Lumad of
Mindanao.

Atang firmly believed that the sarswela and the kundiman express best the Filipino soul, and had
even performed kundiman and other Filipino songs for the Aetas or Negritos of Zambales and the
Sierra Madre, the Bagobos of Davao and other Lumad of Mindanao.

Among the kundiman and the other songs she premiered or popularized were Pakiusap, Ay, Ay
Kalisud, Kung Iibig Ka and Madaling Araw by Jose Corazon de Jesus, and Mutya ng Pasig by
SALVADOR F. BERNAL
National Artist for Theater Design (2003)
(January 7, 1945 – October 26, 2011)

Salvador F. Bernal designed more than 300 productions distinguished for their originality.
Sensitive to the budget limitations of local productions, he harnessed the design potential
of inexpensive local materials, pioneering or maximizing the use of bamboo, raw abaca,
and abaca fiber, hemp twine, rattan chain links and gauze cacha.

As the acknowledged guru of contemporary Filipino theater design, Bernal shared his skills
with younger designers through his classes at the University of the Philippines and the
Ateneo de Manila University, and through the programs he created for the CCP Production
Design Center which he himself conceptualized and organized.

To promote and professionalize theater design, he organized the PATDAT (Philippine

Association of Theatre Designers and Technicians) in 1995 and by way of Philippine Center
of OISTAT (Organization Internationale des Scenographes, Techniciens et Architectes du
Theatre), he introduced Philippine theater design to the world.
SEVERINO MONTANO
National Artist for Theater (2001)
(January 3, 1915 – December 12, 1980)

Playwright, director, actor, and theater organizer, Severino Montano is the forerunner in
institutionalizing “legitimate theater” in the Philippines. Taking up courses and graduate
degrees abroad, he honed and shared his expertise with his countrymates.

As Dean of Instruction of the Philippine Normal College, Montano organized the Arena
Theater to bring drama to the masses. He trained and directed the new generations of
dramatists including Rolando S. Tinio, Emmanuel Borlaza, Joonee Gamboa, and Behn
Cervantes.

He established a graduate program at the Philippine Normal College for the training of
playwrights, directors, technicians, actors, and designers. He also established the Arena
Theater Playwriting Contest that led to the discovery of Wilfrido Nolledo, Jesus T. Peralta,
and Estrella Alfon.

Among his awards and recognitions is the Patnubay ng Kalinangan Award from the City of
Manila (1968), Presidential Award for Merit in Drama and Theater (1961), and the
Rockefeller Foundation Grant to travel to 98 cities abroad (1950, 1952, 1962, and 1963).
LAMBERTO V. AVELLANA
National Artist for Theater and Film (1976)
(February 12, 1915 – April 25, 1991)

Lamberto V. Avellana, director for theater and film, has the distinction of being called
“The Boy Wonder of Philippine Movies” as early as 1939. He was the first to use the
motion picture camera to establish a point-of-view, a move that revolutionized the
techniques of film narration. Avellana, who at 20 portrayed Joan of Arc in time for
Ateneo’s diamond jubilee, initially set out to establish a Filipino theater. Together with
Daisy Hontiveros, star of many UP plays and his future wife, he formed the Barangay
Theater Guild which had, among others, Leon Ma .Guerrero and Raul Manglapus as
members. It was after seeing such plays that Carlos P. Romulo, then president of
Philippine Films, encouraged him to try his hand at directing films. In his first film Sakay,
Avellana demonstrated a kind of visual rhythm that established a new filmic language.

Sakay was declared the best picture of 1939 by critics and journalists alike and set the
tone for Avellana’s career in film that would be capped by such distinctive achievements
as the Grand Prix at the Asian Film Festival in Hong Kong for Anak Dalita (1956); Best
Director of Asia award in Tokyo for Badjao, among others.

Avellana was also the first filmmaker to have his film Kandelerong Pilak shown at the
Cannes International Film Festival. Among the films he directed for worldwide release
were Sergeant Hasan (1967), Destination Vietnam (1969), and The Evil Within (1970).
Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio
National Artist for Theater (2018)
Birthday: 4 April 1930

Known as the Grand Dame of Southeast Asian children’s theatre, Tita Amel is the
founder and playwright-director of the Teatrong Mulat ng Pilipinas, which has placed the
Philippines on the artistic map of world theater. She has written most of the plays
performed by the group based on materials culled from painstaking researches. She has
also been involved in the production and design of puppets. All in all, what she has
achieved is an indigenous fusion of puppetry, children’s literature, folklore, and theater.

Notable Works:

6 na Dulang Filipino Para Sa Mga Bata, 1976

Tat-lu-han (Three Plays), 1975
Ang Paglalakbay ni Sisa: Isang Noh Sa Laguna, 1998
Isang Kyogen sa Pritil, 1977
Sepang Loca, 1957
Papet Pasyon, 1985
Abadeja: Ang Ating Sinderela, 1977
Thank you for Lestining!
 HE-A
GERALDINE MONTE
&
LEO RUBEN
PUMANES