Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

THERE is a bit of Filipino infl uence in each play Fil-Am theatre director Victor Maog (May-og) directs.

"Every story that I do is a Filipino story," said Maog to the Asian Journal. "Everything that I do is inherently Filipino. Everything that I do is inherently about the values of Catholicism or my family, or the Maog name. All of those things converge when I approach a play even if it’s a western or Shakespearean play, it’ll always be through a Filipino American lens."

Looking through a Fil-Am lens allows him to embrace the similarities and differences of the culture, he said.

It also allows him to soak in the culture so that the audience can better understand where the story and its infl uences are coming from.

"How do I take the audience to a whole new country and begin to acclimate and understand what the rules are?" Maog said. "How do I, through theater, begin to investigate my own cultural experiences and transform them into artistic expression? Understanding people’s history and their perspective is also very much important in telling a story."

This intellectual and in a way, method directing process is what makes Maog one of the nation’s rising theatre directors.

At 36, Maog has accomplished what few Fil-Am theatre directors have.

Born in Quezon City, he arrived in the US when he was six years old. He was raised in Union City, about 30 miles South East of San Francisco.

It was at James Logan High School where he would begin his theatre career. Under the tutelage of MacArthur Grant Awardee Tommie Lindsey, Maog excelled as a member of school’s Forensic or speech and debate team.

Lindsey suggested Maog to direct theatre plays.

Maog took it to heart and attended New York University Gallatin School where he graduated with a BA with a concentration in Global Leadership and Performance Studies.

"I had chosen the Gallatin school because it was a place that is rooted in great books and great ideas. I thought to be a theater artist or a citizen making art I have to think of things bigger and that’s why I went to Gallatin," he said.

By the age of 20, Maog had already been appointed as the youngest Artistic Director of Theatre Arts Project of San Joaquin County in Stockton.

At the helm of this $350,000 Department of Labor summer initiative, he led the inner-city company to the Presidential Award for Outstanding Academic Enrichment, according to his website.

And at 22, he had taught and directed in over a dozen states, performed with the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe, attained his fi rst university residencies, and was on the faculty of NYU’s Creative Arts Team.

In 2004, Maog was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theater Communications Group Career Development Award. Maog also received the Paula Altvater Fellowship at Cornerstone Theatre Company, and the Van Lier Directing Fellowship at Off Broadway’s Second Stage Theatre. He has been a mentor director for the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival and has represented the United States as a delegate to the International Theatre Institute/UNESCO’s 31st World Congress in Manila.

Maog is currently the Director of Theatre for the 96-year old Perry-Mansfield, in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, one of the oldest performing arts school in the country.

But his accomplishments go beyond the awards and notoriety.

For Maog theatre is a perfect tool to give underrepresented people a voice and a platform to ask questions. The intimate setting of a theatre allows the audience to feel more compelled to take action, he said.

"There’s something about being in a room where you can shake someone to their very core and thrill someone to action," he said.

Recently, he was named a Sweet Briar Fellow to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and will embark on a two-year collaboration with The Monacan Indian Nation of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The play is set to premiere in 2011.

"I feel like part of my great challenge and honor is to be able to go to other cultures and begin to understand and negotiate with them so that there is a great understanding," said Maog. "When I do a Native American piece, part of my job is to see what the parallels are in our cultures and values as a Filipino and an American.

"My job is to build bridges so I understand when I go to a Native American or any community that there are parallel values about family, our respect for elders, those things are really important to me to fi nd a common thread in many cultures."