Fil-AM broadway actor reads for Himati

Following a very successful line-up of actor-readers, HIMATI: The Bikol Poetry Project initiated by Savage Mind Bookshop and the Ateneo de Naga University Press continues to present new performances by award-winning and notable actors. For its 32nd offering, Fil-American Broadway actor, Marc de La Cruz who is based in New York City will read the poems of canonical writers, Carlos Bulosan and Bienvenido Santos, and contemporary writer Bino Realuyo.

Marc is a New York based actor and cast member of the Broadway company of Hamilton where he plays James Reynolds and Philip Schuyler and understudies Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Laurens/Philip and King George. He was also part of the original Broadway cast of If/Then. Other credits include Ordinary Days (Off-Broadway, Keen Company), Three Days to See (Off-Broadway, Transport Group), Prison Dancer (NY Musical Theater Festival), Where Elephants Weep (world premiere in Phnom Penh) and Vietgone (Studio Theatre D.C.). He is also a member of the Broadway Barkada, a community of Filipino performers across the U.S.

Carlos Bulosan who is best known for his work, America Is In The Heart, recently reissued under Penguin Classics was also a political activist and a cultural hero among many Filipino-Americans.

Bienvenido Santos, like Bulosan, was also a chronicler of the Filipino-American experience in diaspora. Widely recognized as one of our best writers in English, Santos who lived and taught in Naga City chose to retire in Camalig, Albay, her wife’s hometown. Bino Realuyo who traces his origin in the town of Oas, Albay, is an award-winning novelist and poet having won some literary prizes in the United Sates. Realuyo’s latest poetry collection, The Gods We Worshipped Lived Next Door, is inspired by one of the Santos’ poem which will be read by de la Cruz on October 15, 2020, and will be uploaded in the Savage Mind FB Page and YouTube Channel.

The reading is part of the bookshop’s celebration of the Filipino American History Month which falls every October.