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Former Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero scholar donates new theater to CCP
Businessman Ignacio B. Gimenez, a scholar of influential playwright, director, and actor Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, has donated a new theater to the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) to honor his mentor, “to give back” to the Filipino people, and to encourage local business community leaders to engage more in Philippine theater.
Informally called “the new CCP Black Box,” the theater is expected to be unveiled in January or February 2017 with an inaugural season featuring new and original Filipino works.
“Theater is my heart,” said Gimenez in an interview. “All throughout the four years of my high school days, I was involved in theater.”
Upon being accepted into the University of the Philippines at Diliman, pre-med student Gimenez joined the UP Dramatic Club and eventually became its president. “I was not a jock. I did not play basketball,” recalled the businessman, who is now chairman of the board of a property development company working on high-quality residential projects.
Gimenez was supported in his undergraduate studies as a scholar of Guerrero, under whose leadership the UP Dramatic Club produced 120 Filipino and foreign plays and served as training ground for fellow theatrical and artistic lumaries like Tony Mabesa, Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Celia Diaz-Laurel, Behn Cervantes and Joonee Gamboa.
As for Gimenez, after graduating from UP, he went on to study at the Asian Institute of Management for graduate school. He later established a securities firm.
“I have a small philosophy. A person should be learning until he or she reaches 30 years of age. Between 30 to 50-60 years of age, he or she must focus on building—building a family, building a fortune, and building a career,” Gimenez said.
“After 60, one should be enjoying already the fruits of one’s labor. Hopefully, the fruits of one’s labor are able to maintain his or her normal living, plus an extra amount that he or she can give back to the world or community,” he added.
“I think every person must write a line, marking up to here only. Beyond this line is giving back to the community and the world.”
Gimenez chose to give back to the theater.
“To me, CCP is the institution that fosters Filipino talent,” he said at the Black Box groundbreaking rites at the CCP Complex on January 19, which was attended by the CCP board of trustees and executive officers. “On this very ground is where Filipino talents are honed. Theater has the power to bring us all together as Filipinos of one nation. If you were in theater, you would know it.”
Cracking a joke in the middle of his interview with GMA News Online, Gimenez said Emily Abrera, chairman of the CCP board of trustees, promised him that his theatrical talents and prowess would be showcased at the new CCP Black Box.
“Emily promised to make me a theater star,” said Gimenez and then broke into hearty laughter.
Gimenez was with his brother, engineer Roberto Olanday, during the interview. Gimenez pointed to Olanday and said with a big smile that the “money will come from him.”
Olanday owns companies engaged in high-rise building construction, commercial malls, publishing, restaurants, security, and property investments and management.
According to CCP technical theater consultant Marie Barbara Tan-Tiongco, the building's initial cost of P50 million is only “an estimate and does not include the cost of sound system, lighting system, carpeting, and other necessary equipment to make a theater suitable to performances.”
In a separate interview, architect Leandro Locsin Jr.—son of CCP Main Building designer Leandro V. Locsin and administrator of Leandro V. Locsin Partners, the company which won the national contest to design the masterplan for the CCP Development Complex—said that the Black Box will be one of the components of a bigger building envisioned to rise on the parking lot of the CCP Main Building.
“The new Black Box will be swallowed by the bigger building planned. However, now that the Black Box will be built ahead of the bigger building, we have to make adjustments on the original design, without altering the integrity of its design,” he said.
Locsin said the new structure will “attempt to balance utilitarian and economics and the flexibility to become relevant through the sustainability of design.”
“When completed, the Black Box must exude the feel that it belongs to the whole CCP Complex,” he added.
First new building in decades
Abrera told the small crowd gathered for the ground-breaking rites that no new building "intended solely for the culture and the arts" has been constructed within the CCP complex for almost three decades. “I want you to remember today, Jan. 19, 2016. Against all odds, we are doing it. Today, we dare to dream and that dream may flourish,” she said.
CCP vice president and artistic director Chris Millado said that the Black Box will be “an incubator of living ideas and a special sacred space where new, original Filipino ideas and works will be developed to engage the Filipino audience.”
‘We want this Black Box to be the new space to become the showcase and the platform for original Filipino works here and in Asia,” he said.
“We are not only digging a hole today. We are breaking grounds to prepare our gifts for the future generations of Filipinos. We are breaking grounds to release these gifts to empower our people and our nation for generations to come.”
CCP president Raul Sunico added that the new theater will help “decongest the heavy booking traffic of the CCP theaters and venues and hopefully, will earn money for the CCP to support its operations.” — BM, GMA News
