Video: HERE LIES LOVE Company Talks Bringing the Show to Broadway

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

One of this summer's most exciting immersive theatrical events is David Burns and Fat Boy Slim's Here Lies Love

They take over the Broadway Theater on June 17th, and we drop by the rehearsal room to meet the company

You are about to return to Broadway and Here Lies Love. How excited are you

I am thrilled. I'm so excited to be telling this Filipino story

with a full Filipino cast, and to be playing a Filipino for the first time in my life

as a Filipino artist. I'm so thrilled. I can't wait for people to come see it

It's going to be a wild ride. A revolutionary experience is going to be transformative

People are going to be really blown away, I think. It's quite a moment. It's quite a moment for me as a Filipino artist

It's a moment for me as an Asian artist. It's a moment for me as somebody that made her Broadway debut in this particular theater

And to be presenting this particular show, which highlights a chunk, a very special

specific chunk of Philippine history in a way that it has not been ever presented before

I mean, that's kind of a lie because it has been presented at the public, and it was also

presented at the Royal National Theater in London and at Seattle Rep. So now, here it is, finally coming to Broadway in a massive theater, in a truly immersive

experience with a cast that is all Filipino, which makes me really, really excited with David

Burns' music and Alex Timber's direction. with David Koren's set design and Annie B's choreography

So it's a lot. I mean looking at it on paper there is a wonderful pedigree given all of the achievements of all of these incredible artists And we have quite a few Broadway veterans in the company as well

So it's exciting on a whole lot of levels. And I think audiences are going to find themselves acquainted with a part of history that they probably never knew or only knew in a very surface level way

and I mean as a Filipino I am finding myself face to face with parts of history

that I might not really have known as in depth as we are getting to know it for this

What's made this so special for you, Jose? Well, you know, I think it's a very personal story for me

My family, I was born in martial law in the Philippines, and we moved here to America because of martial law

My mom and dad raised my sister and me to be very aware of the history of politics in my birth country

and we are just so excited that we can tell the full story and show people not just the Filipinos

but also anybody who wants to hear the story of how popular government can get out of control

and take rights away and how a peaceful protest like the People Power Revolution can take that democracy back

I mean, especially after everything we've been through in the last couple of years, I think we're ready to be in the spaces with each other

to feel that sense of community that theater has always brought. And this does it times 10 because we're all experiencing it together and immersed in it together, dancing and singing together

Like, yeah, I'm excited. I know a lot of people say this This is really a truly groundbreaking way to present a show Oftentimes producers tell you to spend money where you can only see when the lights go down

They have really respected the way that the show has been conceived of since its inception

and the way it was conceived is in this immersive way, in which audience is at times cast in certain roles in the narrative

And from the very, very first conversation, we felt like that was an important way to present the show

And to their credit, we waited and waited and waited to find the right theater, the right producing team, the right creative team, and they have really respected what was built into the DNA of the show

And so we have ripped out every single seat from the orchestra

We have completely built a massive structure inside, not a superfluous way to show the show, but directly tied to narrative

And so it's extraordinary. I mean, as someone who, like, builds environments for a living, this is by far the biggest and most complicated

and longest coming, you know, project I've ever worked on. For me, this piece of art has been the most special

because it really gave me the gift of reckoning with my own history, right? And for a lot of us, this is our gift to the world, you know

this sort of cautionary tale, but wrapped in this exuberant theatrical juggernaut, you know

There's so many possibilities in the theater. And it's great that Broadway seems to be opening up and open to new ways of staging things

new kinds of music that aren kind of traditional Broadway music but there are still about storytelling that that what happening I know what attracted you to this So what do you hope audience members take away after experiencing a performance of Here Lyslaw

Well, obviously, I expect audiences to have a great time. It's a lot of fun

But I think by the end, I expect them to have a feeling of hope

There's a feeling of hope that change can happen. and that they can somehow bring that into their own lives and their own country

Yeah, we say that this show is basically a Trojan horse. It's a party

It's ecstatic joy. We want you leaving floating on a cloud. But it has also something really deep and meaningful underneath a very important story and a very timely story

And so my, like, the greatest success to me would be that you leave floating on a cloud and then you go home and Wikipedia a ton of stuff, you know

audiences have never seen anything like this before. What do you hope they walk away with

I hope that audiences really walk away with a sense of curiosity

and a feeling of being awakened and transformed because the show is more than a party

It is a party. But it's also giving people an experience that it's going to spark conversation

it's going to spark debate, and it's going to help people really look at what's at stake with democracy

and what's important when choosing leaders who have the charisma that you want in a leader

but might have other motives that you have to watch out for

So it's a cautionary tale, but it's also one that I hope will get people to be curious

do their own research, and have conversations about what's important to them