We at The Adobo Chronicles join the entire world in sending positive thoughts to the people of the Philippines.
With help from some of our readers and viewers, we have made donations to the Philippine Red Cross for Haiyan Typhoon relief. We hope that we all continue to help even after the cameras and news media have left the scenes of devastation. Let’s lift up the Filipino spirit. We will endure. We will rebuild. We are one. We are the world!
London, U.K. – The West End revival of “Miss Saigon” is scheduled to open on May 3, 2014 at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. The new Cameron Mackintosh production coincides with the musical’s 25th anniversary next year.
Set in 1975 during the final days of the American occupation of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), the musical tells the epic love story between Chris, an American G.I., and Kim, a young Vietnamese bargirl, and is loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly.” It features music by Claude-Michel Schönberg with lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil, adapted from the original French lyrics by Boublil.
Noblezada
Mackintosh has announced that 17-year old Eva Noblezada, a Charlotte, North Carolina native, has been cast to play the lead role of Kim. Noblezada currently attends the NorthWest School of the Arts in Charlotte. The plan is for her to perform four shows a week when “Miss Saigon” opens, with understudies covering the rest of the performances so she can keep up with her studies.
The Adobo Chronicles learned from inside sources that a 21-year old transgender will train and rehearse as understudy for Noblezada. The sources declined to reveal the name or ethnicity of the understudy. They, however, said that the transgender actress looks and sounds like a young Lea Salonga who originated the role of Kim when it first opened in London.
It will be recalled that when “Miss Saigon” opened on Broadway, the show was met with protests from Asian Americans because it cast a Caucasian, Jonathan Pryce, in the role of the Engineer. This time, Mackintosh has cast a Filipino actor, Jon Jon Briones, to play the all-important role.
Entertainment critics have speculated that the casting of a non-Caucasian for the role of the Engineer and a transgender understudy for the role of Kim, is the production’s way of sending a message that the new “Miss Saigon” is quite sensitive to issues of racial and sexual diversity.
Upon learning of the news about the transgender understudy, a small group of LGBT activists held a peaceful demonstration in front of the Prince Edward Theatre yesterday, chanting “We’re here, we’re Queer, we’re celebrating with our peer!”
Sacramento, California (EXCLUSIVE to The Adobo Chronicles) –Here in the most radical state of the U.S., shark’s fin and foie gras (fattened duck or goose liver) are already banned, thanks to legislation passed and signed into law within the last two years.
California’s law that prohibits the sale, possession, trade, or distribution of shark fins went into effect in July this year, ending the longtime Chinese custom of serving shark’s fin soup. On the other hand, a federal appeals court ruled last September that California can keep in place its ban on the sale of foie gras. The law prohibits state farmers from force-feeding birds with a tube, a procedure used in producing foie gras. The law also prohibits the sale of the delicacy.
Now, in a new move that would inarguably seal California’s reputation as the world’s top melting pot of progressives, conservationists, environmentalists, human and animal rights activists, a bi-partisan group of state assemblymembers is proposing a new set of legislative bans.
The proposed bill will prohibit the sale of lechon (Filipino roasted pig), roasted duck and boiled crab throughout the state. The legislators cited the inhumane procedures used in cooking or displaying these traditional delicacies.
Suckling pigs are bound and skewered in one whole piece before being roasted for hours over a fire pit. Live crabs are boiled in huge pots. Roasted ducks, on the other hand, are displayed stark naked in windows of Chinatown restaurants and food shops, hanging in iron hooks.
The lawmakers were one in saying that “the preparation and cooking procedures for these food items are cruel and have no regard whatsoever for the dignity of these poor creatures.”
The Adobo Chronicles learned that this is just the beginning of a series of legislation that will look into other inhumane practices used in California’s multi-ethnic and diverse food and restaurant industry.
California voters concerned about other cuisine practices are urged to contact their assembly representatives. A toll-free hotline has been established for this purpose: 1 -000- BAN FOOD.
WE INTERRUPT THE NEWS TO BRING YOU THIS AMAZING AND HEART-WARMING VIDEO. MABUHAY! PHILIPPINES!
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