The first production IPAG staged on August 30, 1978, given the opportunity to celebrate the MSU’s Founders Day, was a hodge-podge of comic vignettes (ala “Super Laff-In”) entitled Ito Ba ang Iligan? (Is this Iligan?). These vignettes presented satires on the foibles of our city.

Ito ba marked the birth of the eldest of a long list of productions that were fated to engrave an impression four decades onwards.

The Originals

These pioneers, who were present even before 1978, figured prominently in IPAG’s infant years.

Ricky (IkIk, as we fondly called him, our Music Director) was fresh off from the La Salle Brotherhood, who was currently performing Godspell at that time, too.  Active, too, were Paeng Mijares, our first Production Manager, Dino Quijano, Love Joy Orbe (the original “diva” who would forever be active with IPAG to the present), and the friendship triumvirate of Juliet Fernandez-Malit, Otette Escarda, and Joji Larazabal.

Then there was Jamalludin ‘Maymay’ Alonto who met Minda Legaspi and who eventually became a couple to become one of the more successful restaurateurs in Iligan. Dancers Mitchie Lou Gaite, Tata Padilla-Cabrera, Daisy Paquingan-Caberte, actors Andoy Calicdan, James Tevar, Boyet Nadayag, Sonny Perocho (who would later join the technical staff of CCP), plus others too many to mention.

In the company, too, was Ric-Ric Marata, who would become one of the notable basketball stars of the PBA and the Philippine team.

After Ito Ba filled up the Mini-Theater, IPAG prepared for its next show. The only readily available production-to-be was what our pioneering Resident Choreographer Juliet brought back from her alma mater, the University of Santo Tomas. Juliet, a member of the Salinggawi Dance Troupe, taught at the MSUIIT Physical Education Dept. Salinggawi had just completed a version of A Star is Born, the 70s movie starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. We took the opportunity to stage this, Juliet’s first choreographic work for IPAG, using jazz and contemporary dance as idioms.

Dr. Angelo Manalo, a medical doctor who led one of Iligan’s Rotary Clubs, also a concert enthusiast, culturati, and an organizer of performance events, heard of IPAG’s plans. He immediately booked the Guild with the Rotary as producer paying IPAG two thousand pesos (PhP2,000.00, or approximately US$40) for two shows at the St. Michael’s Auditorium. This was IPAG’s “historic” first professional fee.

Five weeks after its first production and in two months, IPAG had produced two full-feature shows.

The momentum stimulated the company. Another dance concert Fad Jazz was produced in February, three months after A Star, featuring a vaudeville-like format solely showcasing dances of various genres and eras.

The fourth production was a shadow- and hand-puppet show (with an eponymous title) of materials from Philippine folklore under the direction of Amilbangsa.

This first season was capped by the hilarious Jose Ibarra-Angeles one-act comedy Kastilyo ni Kardo which had Rolando Calicdan and Nadayag in the cast (Direction: Gloria Sescon-Fernando). The “confusion” of whether we were a theatre, dance, music, or literary group was to our advantage. “Integrated” was thus true to form; we had become a transdisciplinary company.

Second Season

The 2^nd season invited Eric ‘Amay’ Obach (now a professional music-maker touring the luxury ships of the world), college professors Edna Magdaong and Minda Detalla, and Anita ‘Nitz’ Sescon to our group. Sescon would later on take charge of our training-orientation programs.

In the second season IPAG produced Nonilon Queaño’s Ang Hawla and a devised performance entitled Makina conceived and written by Fernandez.

Makina foresaw the sins of wanton industrialization, a major issue during those times. During those times, waste, pollution, and disease contaminated Iligan which prided itself as being the “Industrial City of the South” (also the “Pittsburg of the South”), a widespread tag.

The largest steel mills in the country, cement factories, downstream steel fabrication firms, vinyl manufacturing, and chemical plants contributed immensely to the widespread pollution and denigration of the environment. It would be 17 years after when Iligan’s hubris would be shattered by the devastating economic crisis of 1997 that left thousands of employees jobless, factories shut down, and families broken. These plants closed shop and the steel mills placed on the block, non-operable up to this day.

IPAG would be further reinforced by stalwarts of university theatre: Jean Claire Fernandez (founder of UPLB’s Thespian Circle) and Anna Mae ‘Nell’ Obach who was a mainstay of Behn Cervantes’ UP Repertory.

Directing, acting, and stage managing, they were a tandem at work and play (Orlando Nadres’ Kwadradong Paraiso, Bonifacio Ilagan’s Pagsambang Bayan, and Boy Noriega’s Kasalan sa Likod ng Simbahan, to name a few).

With us too was Zayda ‘Chad’ Macarambon who figure prominently in IPAG’s growth. Chad was head of the Cultural Development Office. One time, she risked injury when, at the last minute, forgotten requirements had to be secured and in moments of near panic she drove her scooter like crazy to secure what we needed. (Chad was key in IPAG’s wide “Sarimanok” road shows, from UP’s Diamond Jubilee performances, our Luzon shows, to our premiere outing in Silliman.)

In this significant batch too were “bugoys” fun-boys Rory Jon ‘Jong’ Sepulveda, Manuel ‘Maning’ Mamauag, Dodong Realse, Jimmy Mijares, and members of a fun-gang called Cherry Boys (because their hangout was beside a cherry tree). Their endearing stints contributed (by their admission) to “reformation” of their once carefree living. Jimmy Mijares now is Chief Prosecutor of Sibugay Province.

Jong is a distinguished lawyer and CEO of various companies in Cebu including resorts. Maning, another lawyer, was appointed Commissioner of Human Rights. Dodong, a mountaineer, has since migrated to the US and, whenever chance allows, plays gracious host to IPAG whenever the company is in the US.

Our theatre continued as it did even during crises of large magnitudes. We were then most concerned with the unsteady Peace-and-Order condition. Outside our boundaries were ambuscades and gun battles. Martial Law was stifling our expressions and we survived these suffocating years with allegory. Sarimanok was one of these, although viewers saw this in various lights, including that from a romantic angle, which any play effectively engaging a community would expectedly incite.

“Sarimanok” eventually became the fuse that ignited IPAG to national prominence three years after the Guild’s birth. Introducing IPAG to the Dumaguete community of distinguished critics and audiences was Christine Godinez-Ortega, a newly-hired English instructor in 1981. Christine would subsequently become the Guild’s Managing Director.

This is IPAG’s Act Two.

(condensed from Directing On the Fringes, 2020, IPAG-ARM, Inc.)

click to read the full manuscripts of the IPAG