Plays
Scripts from Filipino playwright, Dr. Joem Antonio, are available online for personal reading. If you wish to stage, publish, or publicly discuss any of them, please seek written permission.
Love Cafe Project
Stories that spark conversations on love
Love Cafe Project is a set of narratives that hope to spark conversation on how we, human beings, love. Initially a cycle of four one-act plays by Filipino playwright and author, Dr. Joem Antonio, Love Cafe Project has now expanded into more stories and other media.
The Stories of Love Cafe
Stay Healthy / Cancerous Kang Carrot Ka!
Napakaselan ng Gabi
The Dust in Your Place / Ang Alikabok sa Kusina
Newspaper Dance / Bangko ni Noe
Stray Cat / Pusang Gala
exesanonymous.com
A collection of monologues by "anonymous" people on their exes
The end of relationships can be a very messy business. A man and a woman visit exesanonymous.com as means to deal with their respective relationships. While they might not find the closure they seek, there is a chance that they find catharsis in the stories they find.
exesanonymous.com won the Second Prize for the Full-length Play in English category at the 2016 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards. An excerpt of the play was staged during the awards night.
Heavy Meta
A cycle of ten-minute plays that are reflections on theatre as a medium
And So Replied Niemand (On the Audience)
A Ten-Minute Play
Zarathustra has been speaking for quite a while now… It’s time someone replied.
In the Maw of Radagar (On Directing and Design)
A Ten-Minute Play
Ten minutes to twelve and a Primordial Evil is about to spell doom to the world… if primordial evils do exist to begin with.
The Masters of Modus (On Acting)
A Ten-Minute Play
Learning a revolutionary acting technique... how bad can it be?
Death in Ten Minutes (On Theatre)
A Ten-Minute Play
Two people discover that they’re just characters in a play; greater knowledge leads to greater powers, until one of them discovers that he is slated to die when the play ends.
Death in Ten Minutes received the following awards at Short + Sweet Manila Theatre Festival 2014:
Best Playwright
Best Play
#1 in the Audience Poll for Week 1
Playwright's Revenge (On the Playwright)
A Ten-Minute Play
Tired of performers and audiences speculating what he means to say, renowned playwright Joem Antonio takes it on himself to be as explicit as he can be… by being in his own play as himself.
Historical Plays
Lorenzo
A Full-length Play
Dr. Joem did the research for this play about the life of St. Lorenzo Ruiz. The book and lyric were by Juan Ekis and Dr. Paul Dumol, with music by Ryan Cayabyab.
The Last Filipino
A Full-length Play
From the moment of his capture to his deportment to Guam, Apolinario Mabini takes a firm stand on Philippine Independence at the twilight of the Philippine-American War. When the champions of the Revolution have either died fighting or taken an oath of allegiance, Mabini is left as the last man to defend the Filipino cause. But Mabini’s fight is not merely a matter of Philippine Independence, but a matter of the Filipino soul.
The Last Filipino won the Second Prize for the Full-length Play in English category at the 2014 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards.
The Floret Road
A Full-length Play
In 1891—a time so distant from our advancements in long-distance communication—the three-year silence between a couple is broken with the end of their long distance relationship. The man grieves over the woman he has not seen for over eight years. What experience with her is so alive that a man would cling to memory over the myriad of alternatives before him?
The Floret Road won the First Prize for the Full-length Play in English category at the 2016 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards. An excerpt of the play was staged during the awards night.
Read the 20-minute abridgments: Version A | Version B | Version C
Compact Shakespeare
Abridgments of Shakespeare's Plays
Dr. Joem Antonio created Compact Shakespeare to bring the Bard's stories, words, and theatricality to theatre enthusiasts and audiences of the 21st century. He and his students have abridged Shakespeare plays to the ten-minute format only by deleting words. The result is a set of scripts that can be staged within limited budgets, schedules and performance spaces, as well as by cast and crew of varying skill levels.
Miscellaneous Plays
The Domestic Problems of Good King George (formerly entitled Gabrielle)
A One-Act Play
Princess Gabrielle lacks suitors because she’s no damsel in distress. Enter Dolly the Witch to save the day. And so it begins, the Domestic Problems of Good King George...
Gabrielle won the Second Prize in the One-Act Play in English category at the 2006 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards.
William Shakespeare Has Left the Building
A One-Act Play
Three students are setting up a mandatory class exhibit on William Shakespeare. The Bard is not pleased.
The Most Spectacular Sloths in the World
A Ten-Minute Play
San Honorico is the cleanest town on earth. It's also where the most industrious people live. But that's not what San Honorico is really famous for.
An Operatic Template for a Basic Plot
A Ten-Minute Play
Exactly what the title says.