10 Things We Wish We Knew Before We Saw We Aren’t Kids Anymore
This new musical isn't exactly a musical.
(SPOT.ph) Barefoot Theatre Collaborative—the company behind critically acclaimed productions like Mula Sa Buwan, The Last Five Years, and Bar Boys—is opening its 2025 season with We Aren’t Kids Anymore (WAKA), a song cycle by award-winning American musical theater performer, lyricist, and composer Drew Gasparini. While Gasparini is widely known for his work on stage adaptations like The Karate Kid and It’s Kind of a Funny Story, plus the hit album I Could Use A Drink, WAKA takes a more unconventional and very personal route (but more on that later).
This Manila production of WAKA is a 90-minute, no-intermission performance led by a powerhouse cast playing the five “Drews”: Myke Salomon, Gab Pangilinan, Maronne Cruz, Gio Gahol, and Luigi Quesada (Katrine Sunga and Angelo Lantaco serve as covers). It's directed by Rem Zamora, with musical direction by Farley Asuncion and Salomon, with movement direction by Jomelle Era.
We caught a recent performance upon the production's invite. We entered with no expectations and just pure curiosity. The setting was arena style, intimate and stripped down, with only a four-piece band sitting on a square stage where the cast of five could run around and perform. The five actors performed 19 back-to-back songs with no spoken dialogue, except for the one towards the ending. The format may surprise many, especially those expecting to see the kind of musicals they're used to but We Aren't Kids Anymore isn't your usual musical theater show.
Because the material is new, little is written about WAKA to give audiences a fleshed-out idea of the production. While going in without a backgrounder is one way to see the show, it might be helpful to get a few things out of the way before you take your seat. Check out all these essential notes about We Aren't Kids Anymore before catching it at the Power Mac Spotlight Blackbox Theater this May.
Here are 10 things you need to know about We Aren't Kids Anymore:
The Manila opening of WAKA happened just days after the official world premiere.
When Barefoot Theatre Collective first announced its production of We Aren't Kids Anymore, we had to Google what it's about. And there aren't many articles, videos, or other content about it out there. But don't worry, it's a real show; it's just really new.
WAKA opened for the first time to global audiences at The Savoy Theatre in London on April 28th— just five days before it opened in Manila. In London, the five main characters are played by Aimie Atkinson, Melanie La Barrie, Nigel Harman, Cassius Hackforth, Jenna Lee-James, and Dylan Mulvaney.
Don’t look for a backstory or linear plot.
WAKA isn't your typical musical or theater performance; it lacks your usual storyline. It will challenge your need for a cohesive narrative because there’s actually none. The best way to enjoy the show and get a feel of what it's about is to let go and immerse yourself in each song and lyric as they come. You'd be surprised to know we now have favorite tracks from the show: I Wish I Never Met You, Faking Cool, What The Hell Am I Doing With My Life? and Mom Could Play Guitar.
It’s mainly a song cycle.
Unlike most book musicals, which tell a story with characters and dialogue, WAKA is a song cycle. This means it's a collection of songs that present a theme through standalone tracks without a full plot. Other notable song cycle shows include Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tell Me On A Sunday, Songs for a New World, The Theory of Relativity, and many more.
When asked to describe We Aren't Kids Anymore, Gasparini described it as “somewhere in the undefined areas between musical, play with music, a gig, and song cycle.”
If you’re feeling a little lost—or unsure what to make of it at first—you’re not alone. Even seasoned actors and theater fans admit it takes a while to warm up to song cycles.
It features 19 songs and a poem.
As a song cycle, WAKA has no spoken lines but there's a poem by Keith White that ties up the songs at the end. Audiences experience the show's progression through a setlist of songs from Drew Gasparini's autobiographical album, which talks about his “profound feeling of never truly growing up.” Here, he mines his childhood memories, his relationships, inner struggles, and his journey of chasing the dream.
WAKA started as a college production and then became a Spotify album.
We Aren't Kids Anymore first premiered in 2019 at Christopher Newport University’s Ferguson Center for the Arts in Virginia, USA, as a showcase of their musical theatre students. After this, Gasparini uploaded the studio cast recording on Spotify in 2020, which gained a fanbase during the pandemic.
Fun fact: Myke Salomon admitted that he got hooked on the album in 2020. "Mom Could Play Guitar, and Danny & Andrew were the songs that cradled me through ECQ alert level 1, 2, 3, 4 x infinity," he said. “I felt like I gained a new friend named Drew by just lending an ear to 19 songs.”
Everybody is Drew.
Every character onstage is Drew. All five performers represent different timelines, perspectives, and layers of the same person. The characters cut across age, generations, and gender, which can be tricky to make sense of, especially if you're not prepared. Don't bother figuring out who was who, and what version of Drew was performing what. Save yourself the confusion: don't think of them as separate characters; they're just different parts of one life.
The songs tackle the ups and downs of growing up.
If you feel like you never quite got the hang of adulthood, then Drew's songs might send you down an existential rabbit hole.
Early fans of the 2020 Spotify album can attest to how each song felt like a conversation with their inner child or represented a difficult time in their adult lives. The show doesn't shy away from sensitive topics. It has songs that touch on addiction, mental health, and other deep and dark realities of adulthood.
“We Aren’t Kids Anymore isn’t just a collection of songs,” said Zamora. “It’s a deeply personal, emotionally charged song cycle that explores that ache, and everything in between: the beauty, the heartbreak, the humor, and the reckoning that life brings as we get older.”
While the struggles can apply to many generations, we did spot a few pop culture references in the songs telling of Drew’s age group—he's an elder millennial. Keep your ears open for those clues.
It’s a concert featuring five of the brightest new stars of the Philippine theater scene.
The show unfolded like an emotionally charged concert full of dynamic shifts in movement and emotion. Each "Drew" brought a different element to the stage, making the show exciting at every turn. As expected, real-life power couple Myke Salomon and Gab Pangilinan delivered powerful vocal performances throughout the show, keeping everyone on their toes. Gio Gahol's performance gave Drew an extra layer of vulnerability. Maronne Cruz’s quirky Drew was a treat; we’d love to see her land more lead roles in the future. Finally, Luigi Quesada went for a slow, meek approach which escalated very satisfyingly, powerfully towards the show's end.
There are pre- and post-show activities to help you process the material.
The great thing about We Aren't Kids Anymore is that it's thought-provoking and very real, so we understand how it can evoke many emotions. Luckily, booths around the venue can help you process (or give you a pregame sesh if you arrive early).
There’s a booth where you can write a message to your younger self, large decorative letters that you can vandalize with words, a playground-inspired photo booth with free candy to satiate your inner child, and plenty of other easter eggs like poignant excerpts from the songs scattered across the venue. Don’t forget to check out the colorful merch, too, such as stickers and notebooks with lines from the songs.
The songs are worth a second visit.
The cast’s quick entrance and exit seemed deliberate, just as the back-to-back songs with no intermission came and went fast, perhaps an allusion to how growing up happens in a heartbeat. If you need post-show processing (as Drew puts it: “I’ve got a little more pain to work through,"), are suffering from earworm, or are looking for that one lyric, go and revisit the songs on Spotify, or better yet, you can watch BTS reels of the show to help you digest everything that just happened. We promise, we won't judge.
We Aren’t Kids Anymore runs until May 25, 2025, at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater, Circuit Makati. Tickets (P3,200 for gold and P2,700 for silver) are available at their channels. The show will run for 90 minutes without an intermission. Latecomers will not be admitted.