From Small-Town Rotunda to Big-Time Rialto
Joan Almedilla
With lyrics that tease, Good morning, yesterday. You wake up and time has slipped away, Almedilla walked down memory lane beginning with a childhood buoyed by music. The youngest of three children, she recalls singing in the kitchen of her family home in Cebu.
“When I was five, or maybe younger, my family would ask me to sing. And if I did, they’d give me ₱10 – that was a lot back then,” she said. “And then, if I could cry real tears, they’d give me more money.”
The veteran stage performer, whose credits include playing Aurora Aquino in the Los Angeles production of Here Lies Love, Kim in Miss Saigon on Broadway, and Fantine for the national tour of Les Misérables, recently wrapped up a scene-stealing turn as Bloody Mary in South Pacific at The Muny in St. Louis.
But her knack for entertaining goes back decades and across more than 8,000 miles away. At age seven, she won an amateur singing contest on local Cebu radio, stoking an already glowing ember within.
“It was called Wee Wee Jamboree on the radio. ‘Good morning, yesterday…’ that’s what I sang,” she recalled. “Apparently, I had memorized the song. It was the very first song I learned.”
Joan Almedilla (center) performs as Bloody Mary during the July 2026 production of “South Pacific” at The Muny in St. Louis (Photo by Phillip Hamer)
Growing up, Almedilla idolized the likes of Filipino singing icons Lea Salonga, Manilyn Reynes, Ivy Violan, Rico Puno, Hajji Alejandro, and Freddie Aguilar.
“I went to an all-girls school and we had the barkada, right? In my group, I was the one who loved to sing and loved music,” she said, noting that her musical repertoire extended to playing the guitar or the conga drums during school masses.
It was during this time that Almedilla’s mother, Rose, decided to further nurture her daughter’s innate skills.
“My mom ‘secretly’ enrolled me to get voice lessons – and I say secretly because my dad (at first) wanted me to go to school and be a nurse or an accountant or something like that,” she explained. “When it was getting more serious, my dad became very supportive of me singing in the church choir, and I remember him coaching me in a school singing contest.”
In the early ‘90s, Almedilla, along with her father, Pepe, and her siblings, came to the U.S. and settled in New York, where Rose was already working at a hospital as a medical technologist.
“I was 19 years old, landing at JFK in the dead of winter. I didn’t have a jacket or anything and my mom told me, ‘You’re going to get sick.’ And I did, for like a month,” she said, noting that while it was an adjustment, being surrounded by family helped ease her transition into American life. “I met cousins here that I never knew I had, and uncles and aunties and extended family. There was always an excuse to get together every Saturday and Sunday…someone picks up the guitar and it’s like karaoke – and there’s always food.”
After a stint at Nassau Community College, where she studied communications, Almedilla transferred to Hofstra University to major in economics.
“School’s expensive, so I got a loan,” she said. “I majored closer to what my dad wanted. Accounting was not my favorite, but I actually started liking economics. But I didn’t really finish – I would love to go back.”
She had good reason to leave school: In 1999, she was cast as Fantine (the first Asian to play the role) for the national tour of Les Misérables.
“I had to decide if I should keep going on debt or pay my debt. So, I decided to stop college and went on the tour,” she said.
Prior to embarking on the Les Misérables tour, Almedilla had already launched her star on Broadway, landing the role of Kim in Miss Saigon from 1995 to 1997. It was not lost on her that it was the role originated by Salonga, which garnered the international superstar a Tony Award, among other accolades, for her performance.
“I had never really done musical theater before, and now I had to act and dance and kiss a soldier. I just wanted to sing!” Almedilla said. “After you’re hired, there's this time when they give you time to watch the actor that you're replacing, so you follow them backstage. I wish I was there to watch Lea, her process, when she was there. I was just so intimidated, so overwhelmed. But most musical theatre people are so kind. It’s such a kind community.”
For two years on tour, Almedilla settled into the role of Kim, describing a collaborative process working with her fellow Miss Saigon actors.
Almedilla (center) in the July 2026 production of “South Pacific” at The Muny in St. Louis (Photo by Phillip Hamer)
“You work together for six, eight hours a day, so you see each other’s flaws. You’re finding things and you adjust,” she said. “It’s kind of humbling, you know, when you’re still finding your own.”
Her search for professional growth led her to legendary acting coach Allen Savage, a beloved teacher to many who aspired to see their name in lights.
“He was my mentor. He completely changed my life,” Almedilla said. “I always jokingly say that he would shred you to pieces and then he’d put you back together. He could tell if there was something holding me back.”
Working with Savage over the course of several years, Almedilla said one of the most important things she learned about acting is how to listen.
“Acting is so brave emotionally, you really have to get there,” she said. “You don't think, ‘I'm going to be convincing,’ you just do it many times and you understand. It’s like throwing a basketball back and forth without dropping it because you’re in sync. It’s really life-changing. It’s like when you have a friend that just listens, you know what I mean? So, as an actor – I don’t want to get too technical – he taught us how to just listen. And it’s incredible when you also apply it in life.”
Savage died in 2024, the same year the Almedilla family lost Pepe.
“My dad passed away in February and (Allen) passed away in November…2024 was hard,” she said of losing her father and a father figure at the same time.
Such profound loss may have been channeled months later, as Almedilla took on the role of Aurora Aquino in Here Lies Love, the groundbreaking musical featuring music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. The story centers around the former first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, wife of the late dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. Almedilla played the mother of slain opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. as part of an all-Filipino cast in the show’s Los Angeles production.
“The show didn’t force people to pick sides or anything,” she said. “It just tells a story about what war can do and what division can do – and what peaceful protest can do, if we all band together as people.”
Almedilla credits fellow performer Reanne Acasio, who played Aurora on Broadway, for giving her insight into who the real Aurora Aquino was.
“Reanne was kind enough to share her notes – she spoke with the family, with the grandchildren. And what I have discovered is that there was such a quiet strength about Aurora,” Almedilla said. “If you know the story, you know what happened to her son. People looked to her for strength. We all have that in our family, right? The grandma who doesn’t judge but is just there for you and you know they’ll always be there.”
Performing Here Lies Love for a mostly Filipino audience was a highlight, but as Almedilla would come to find out, its message was far more universal.
“It wasn’t just so many Filipinos, but there were Asians, whites, Blacks and Latinos – they all came to watch,” she said. “Every time I had a chance to speak with people who didn’t know anything about the show, they would always say, ‘I’m going home to research this. I had no idea what you guys went through.’”
Some in the audience were Filipino Americans who had fled the country to escape the turbulent political climate of the 1980s.
“They were crying, bawling 80-year-olds… and to see the show reminded them of their history,” she said.
Her most recent appearance as Bloody Mary in The Muny’s production of South Pacific” marked a departure from the “quiet strength” of her previous role. But Almedilla was careful to avoid playing into any stereotypes long associated with the larger-than-life character from mythical Bali Ha’i.
“The first thing I did not want to do is make a caricature out of Bloody Mary,” she said. “She’s just a businesswoman fighting for her daughter and for survival. She’s not afraid, she’s not trying to please anybody. She just wants to survive and she’s going to use as many tactics as she can to survive and make sure her daughter, Liat, is going to be OK.”
When asked about her most challenging role to date, Almedilla considers her portrayal of opera great Maria Callas in the Sierra Madre Playhouse production of Master Class.
Growing up, Almedilla idolized the likes of Filipino singing icons Lea Salonga, Manilyn Reynes, Ivy Violan, Rico Puno, Hajji Alejandro, and Freddie Aguilar.
“Maria Callas was a perfectionist…she was a beautiful singer but so scary and so effective, I had to get into her mind,” she said. These days, Almedilla calls Burbank home, where she lives with her husband, Charles Uy, and their teenage son. But the Philippines will always tug at her heartstrings. “I always look at little Joan when she had her first singing contest, and my mind goes back to that little town and singing in the middle of that rotunda,” she said. “Now that I’m older, I look back and there are a few people I want to go back to and just thank them. Oh, my gosh, I wish I could see them again! My teachers in school, some friends, the voice school I went to…they really believed in me.” Life happens fast, Almedilla concluded. “I cannot not think of Cebu. I think of Cebu every day. And I think of my friends all the time. It’s always, always on my mind.” Almedilla, along with Broadway’s Jon Jon Briones, “The Voice” Season 26 winner Sofronio Vasquez and others, will appear in concert as part of East West Players’ “Crazy Talented Asians” showcase Aug. 21 and 22 at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Los Angeles. Award-winning journalist Trish Muyco-Tobin has a combined 30 years of experience in TV, radio and print as an editor, reporter, news anchor and producer. She is a member of the faculty at the School of Communications at Webster University in St. Louis, where she also serves as adviser for student publications, including the Webster Journal and Ampersand magazine. More articles from Trish Muyco-Tobin
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