PETA stages stories of survival

A woman apologizes for her own body. Three students hide their mental strain from a world that expects them to bear it alone. An aging couple watches memory slip away because of illness.

Modern life often treats endurance as an isolated duty. This month, the Philippine Educational Theater Association pushes back against that premise. PETA returns with Control + Shift: Changing Narratives StudioLab LIVE, a limited series that treats personal survival as a community effort rather than a solo fight.

Running across two weekends from 20 to 29 November 2026 at the PETA Studio Theater in Quezon City, the lineup features five performances across music, movement, poetry, and traditional storytelling. The works fall into four curated sets, each focused on a different side of how people lean on one another through hard times.

Set A, titled Tangan, focuses on unspoken private struggles. It features Michelle Ngu-Nario’s “BYOB” (Bring Your Own Baon), directed by Johnnie Moran, which addresses youth mental health as a collective responsibility. Yeyin de la Cruz adapts Carl Joseph E. Papa’s animated film Paglisan, directed by Gio Gahol, to follow a couple as they live with memory loss. Completing the set is Noelle Polack’s solo movement and poetry piece Pagsilang ni Dimaya, directed by Gold Villar-Lim, which deals with body shame and female agency.

Set B, Tahanan, looks at the places and groups that catch people when they fall. The Pampanga youth collective Bale-Balayan presents Ding Parul Ning Bale-Balayan, directed by Raul Alfonso, using regional heritage performance to build spaces of belonging. In contrast, Anj Heruela’s Baga ng Gumuguhong Langit, directed by Ian Segarra, uses movement theater to portray orphaned children in active war zones, testing the limits of human resilience when protective systems break down.

Sets C and D recombine these core works under distinct thematic lenses. Set C, Tulay, combines BYOB, Pagsilang ni Dimaya, and Baga ng Gumuguhong Langit to show how isolation takes root when society fails to reach out. Set D, Tinig, pairs Paglisan and BYOB to ask which stories get a platform and which remain ignored.

The festival treats everyday care as an essential civic structure. Showtimes are at 19:00 for evening performances and 14:00 for matinees. Tickets cost P700 per set through PETA’s direct registration channels and box office contacts.