“Growing up, I explored almost every sport, hobby, activity, or art form that I am interested in before settling into acting.

I took interest in playing the piano, the marching band or what they called in the Philippines, ‘Drum and lyre’ where I played the Lyre Xylophone. I played dress up countless of times, I did gymnastics, I took swimming lessons, I learned how to play the guitar, I participated in every class jingle/ dance back in the Philippines. Name it, I have probably tried it!

During the summer of 2014, it was Mother’s day, my mom and I decided to go see our church’s local play before the mass. However, we both missed it. I got upset because as a kid, to me this was like following a TV show’s new episode and you missed it while everyone you know has seen it so you and now the excitement of seeing what’s next is gone. My mom saw how upset I was about this. Before mass started my mom saw a booth saying “Teatro Dulahay Summer Sign-ups”. A wave of nostalgia hit her because she also did that when she was younger. She went ahead and signed me up.

Teatro Dulahay is a theatre company that is with our local church. My mom thought, “What if she’s in it? She’ll never have to miss out on the next play?” Teatro Dulahay was a week intensive camp and it included kids my age to teenagers that were about to graduate high school. It was such a safe space and being introduced to that community was very heartwarming to me. I was 9 and I was introduced to such an honest space and I can’t even imagine the other people in that camp that are experiencing this later on in their life. After the camp, it was the only thing that I want to keep on pursuing and I ended being in almost every production of Teatro Dulahay after that.”