Whomstve?
About
Where does one begin?
My comedy and performance career began in 2003, when, at four years old, I stood on the dining table and performed Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” while banging a tambourine and singing into a child-sized Britney mic.
I grew up in a single-parent, low-income family, where my Elton John impressions turned into repeating bits I learned from reruns of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and SNL clips on YouTube. Now, I am still trying to follow my same youthful impulses of spontaneous creativity to make art that excites me and others, from running around in a garbage bag dress on Instagram to an hour-long solo improv show in my apartment to putting eyes on ramen to tell a two-minute love story.
I'm a Filipino-American, nonbinary performer, writer, and collaborative theatermaker originally from Auburn, Washington. I received my B.A. in Theater & Performance Studies and Psychology from Yale University, which I attended on full financial aid. At Yale, my play Schema premiered as a staged reading; another play, A Butterfly in a Barbershop was selected for the Yale Playwrights Festival; I performed a long-form-improv-meets-solo-performance piece Do Your Happy Dance, Jericho! as my senior thesis project; and I received the Marina Keegan Prize for Excellence in Playwriting as well as the James S. Metcalfe Prize.
Currently based in New York, I have performed at the Providence Fringe Festival and as a guest artist in Every Brilliant Thing at the Yale Schwarzman Center, collaborated as part of The Orchard Project Core Company, and have been named a 2050 Administrative Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. At NYTW, I am the assistant director and dramaturg for the Youth Artistic Instigators youth ensemble’s devised performance.
In the world of comedy, I am part of the Second City NYC Grad Revue program, I am a UCB Diversity Scholarship recipient, and I am a house sketch performer in the absurd/gonzo team, Alternative Medicine, in the People’s Sketch Revue at the PIT Theater. I also perform with my long-form improv team, Greatest Generation, and create experimental improv shows with my friend Will Gonzalez as Will & Marty Present.
Do you also like making comedy, theatre, or something else(!) that's silly, meaningful, and illuminates our shared humanity through spontaneity? Woah! We should collab or connect!
Comedy
My artistry, both as a comedian and as a deviser,
is centered in playing! In the process of creating work like Do Your Happy Dance, Jericho! or shows like Will & Marty Present, I am drawn to pushing improvisers to their limits and seeing what happens.
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As part of the absurd/gonzo team for the People's Sketch Revue at the PIT, I love doing just as our team's theme suggests: writing and performing characters who are absurd and gonzo, over-the-top, and quirky. And I absolutely love the challenge of performing a variety of characters all within one show, back to back.
Left: Will & Marty Present...Quarter Life Crisis
Performance
I strive to embrace spontaneity as a theatermaker, as I believe it leads to truthful portrayals of the human experience. Live responses to impulses are filled with our humanity, so I believe in just trying things, then going from there. And whether in the rehearsal room or in the performance, I strive to make work in which audiences and performers alike are discovering alongside one another.
Right: Do Your Happy Dance, Jericho!
set designed by Robbie Skoronski, lighting designed by Eitan Acks
Writing & dramaturgy
As a writer and dramaturg, I am drawn to telling stories that let us into characters' minds and how they see the world. I'm interested in making the psychological physical and the invisible visible through humor, the reimagining of genres, or the lenses of art forms like commedia dell'arte or silent film. I love getting into structures, and I love finding ways into the piece for all audiences.