Christine Corpuz is a recent graduate of NYU's Graduate Acting Program last May. She wrote a one-woman show and performed it last spring as a final "Freeplay" project at NYU. The play is entitled, “I Am Nothing Like My Mother,” and it just got picked up for a professional 4-week run. The Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York is producing it. It's a ground-breaking event, as The Nuyorican hasn't invested in, nor promoted an Asian-American solo artist or actress, let alone a Filipino-American performer, in years. The show opens today, December 21st, and runs thru January 13, 2008. Today, all roads lead to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Ms. Corpuz was the only Filipino-American actress at NYU's Tisch Graduate Acting program during the past three years. She found it very important to place herself in a starring role when students were given an opportunity to create whatever work they wanted during the "Freeplay" festival last spring. Though she was blessed with great "character-driven" roles, she was never seen as a lead actress during those years, thus she decided to create her own show. Auditions got slow for Ms. Corpuz at first. Instead of getting frustrated and angry with not being seen as a "mainstream" actress, she decided to remount her show and create her own niche. She refused to wait for a role to be written for her by other playwrights. She pitched her show to several theater companies in New York. It was finally picked up for a full-produced run by The Nuyorican Poets Cafe. This show being produced is not only proof that a Filipino-American thespian can be seen in a starring-role, but it's also the dramatization (pun intended) of a passionate drive of a new Filipino-American artist to create a name in the Big Apple, the world’s most-exciting city.

Perhaps Filipino Americans in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut can experience what could possibly be a trail-blazing phenomenon in the American entertainment field. We have to support Ms. Corpuz’s show not only because she is one of our people but also because she has the guts to break the proverbial glass ceiling. So, please join the MabuhayRadio.com in telling Ms. Corpuz’s story, so as to inspire other struggling Asian-American artists. Perhaps, the “I Am Nothing Like My Mother” show can launch a new Filipino face in Broadway. Only time will tell but it will easier for Christine if her “kababayans” will give her budding career a lift. It will be a nice Christmas present for her and the positive Filipino image in the United States.

To view the poster of Ms. Corpuz’s show, please click on http://www.nuyorican.org/Theater/theater.html

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