MAPEH

• Filipino playwrights

  • Francisco Balagtas y Dela Cruz
  • Severino R. Reyes
  • Dr. Ricardo G. Abad
  • Salvador F. Bernal
• Protagonist


  • Met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to choose a Godly life over evil
• Dramatic works


  • Put characters in a lot of danger to appeal to the emotions and in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action
• Francisco Balagtas y dela cruz

  • Born on April 2, 1788 in Panginay, Bigaa, Bulacan
  • Died on February 20, 1862
  • Also known as Francisco Baltazar
  • His best work is the Florante at Laura
  • It was in prison that he wrote Florante at Laura so that the events of the poem were meant to parallel his own situation
  • He then published it upon his release in 1838
  • Balagtas is so greatly revered in the Philippines that the term for Filipino debate in extemporaneous verse is named after him: Balagtasan and one of the greatest literary awards in the Philippines is also named after him
• Severino R. Reyes


  • "Father of the Tagalog Zarzuela"
  • A Filipino writer, dramatist, and playwright
  • Highly acclaimed as one of the giants of Tagalog literature
  • In 1902, Reyes founded and directed the Grand Compana de Zarzuela Tagala
  • On June 14, 1902, the company staged his play Walang Sugat, a drama set against the historical events in Bulacan during the Philippine revolution
  • Severino's masterpiece, Walang Sugat broadly underscores the injustice of Spanish rule even as it dances around the cruel fate of the young lovers with humor and song
• Dr. Ricardo G. Abad

  • Born in Manila on August 10, 1946
  • Has been involved as actor and director in over 120 productions while at the same time doing sociological work as teacher, researcher, and editor
  • He has also directed and acted for professional companies like Teatro Pilipino and Tanghalang Pilipino of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and the Metropolitan Theater
  • Theater Guild. Many of his theater productions were classics of western drama but in terms of a Filipino and Asean sensibility, like Shakespeare's Romeo and Julie
• Salvador F. Bernal


  • "Father of Theater Design in the Philippines"
  • Born in 1945, he was the first to develop theater design as a profession and elevate it to an art form
  • Taught briefly at Ateneo de Manila and University of the Philippines
  • He had designed more than 250 productions in ballet, theater, and film
  • He was also a National Artist Awardee