The award-winning short dramatic works Dumaguete playwright Elsa Martinez Coscolluela are set to be performed in a theatre festival organized by the Speech and Theatre Department of the Silliman University College of Performing and Visual Arts [COPVA], running from Nov. 28 to Dec.7 at the Woodward Blackbox Theatres.
These productions also serve as the senior thesis requirement for the student directors, who are all speech and theater majors at Silliman.
The festival will comprise of three sets of one-act plays by Coscolluela. Set A, which opened the festival on Nov. 28-29, includes Japayukisan, directed by Bret Bonnie A. Ybañez, which won third prize at the 1988 Palanca Awards, and Blood Spoor, directed by Francis Matthew Esguerra, which won third prize in 1970.
Set B, slated on Dec. 2-3, includes First Fruits, directed by Teresita E. Gal, which won second prize in 1985, and Late Journey Home, directed by Jorelyn Mae C. Garcia, which won an honorable mention in 1982.
Set C, slated on Dec.6-7, includes only one play, The Captive Word, directed by Eazel T. Sevilleno, which won second prize in 1980.
The festival is organized in cooperation with Artista Sillimaniana and Buglas Writers Guild [BWG]. The idea of staging the dramatic works of Dumaguete writers started in 2023, with a similar festival staging the Palanca-winning one-act plays of Bobby Flores Villasis, which was spearheaded by the BWG.
Dessa Quesada Palm, BWG Negros Oriental pepresentative and COPVA theatre faculty, says telling local stories by local writers is what is imperative in this festival project. “Theatre is storytelling, truth-telling. Many scripts penned by our local playwrights chronicle our stories and their peculiar contexts and it is important that they are consummated by producing them onstage. We wanted our emerging directors to honor and celebrate the rich resource that is our reservoir of plays written by our amazing writers,” Palm said.
According to BWG President Ian Rosales Casocot, a festival showcasing local works was necessary to elevate the status of theatre and playwriting in Dumaguete. “We always produce plays written by Manila writers, to the point that we neglect the fact that we have our own rich heritage of playwriting, not just in Silliman University, but the whole of Negros Oriental as well,” Casocot said.
Casocot also said that Dumaguete has just been endorsed by the country to be the official nominee for UNESCO City of Literature in 2025. “Festivals like this are necessary to provide living proof of how vibrant the local literary community is,” he said.
Coscolluela was born in Dumaguete City, where she earned her AB and MA for Creative Writing at Silliman University. She was also Miss Silliman 1964. Later, she was vice president for Academic Affairs at the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City, and retired in 2010 after 32 years of service. Upon retirement, she was conferred the rank of Professor Emeritus, and was designated Special Assistant to the President for Special Projects, a post that she continues to hold. During her term as VPA, she founded the Negros Summer Workshops with film director Peque Gallaga in 1990, and the IYAS Creative Writing Workshop in 2000, in collaboration with Cirilo Bautista, Marjorie Evasco and the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center of De La Salle University, Manila.
She writes poetry, fiction, drama, and filmscripts in English, and has published a book of poetry, Katipunera and Other Poems. Several of her works have been anthologized. As a writer, she is best known for her full-length play about Dumaguete during World War II, In My Father’s House, which has been produced in Dumaguete, and in Japan, Singapore, San Francisco, and New York. She was also inducted to the Palanca Hall of Fame in 1999 and is the recipient of several awards from the CCP, Philippines Free Press, and the Philippine Centennial Literary Competition.
Tickets for the plays are priced at ₱200 and can be purchased at the venue. [Buglas Writers Guild]
