MERCURY MAKES THE SKIN GLOW
Leviathan Lab Presents
MERCURY MAKES THE SKIN GLOW
By Gaven D. Trinidad
Directed by Roger Q. Mason
Monday, April 20th | 7:00 P
ART-New York - Aibel Studio | 520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor | MAP
Filipinos love love. Filipinos love beauty. Filipinos love beauty pageants.
Veteran pageant queen Carmelita establishes a new circuit of pageants for the Filipino American community in New York City. Against her daughter Jesca's wishes, Carmelita coerces her seven-year-old grandson, Ernesto, to participate, which unearths troubling questions of race, identity, colorism, and the Global South's multi-billion-dollar obsession with skin whitening. Part unhinged teleserye/telenovela, part beauty pageant, and part historical reckoning, the play investigates how the dangerous pursuit of "whiteness" is more than skin deep.
CAST
Arianne Recto (Export Quality, co-founder of Ma-Yi Theater) as Carmelita
Liz Casasola (Dogeaters, Imelda the Musical, co-founder of Broadway Barkada) as Jesca
Nacho Tambunting (Felix Starro, Spring Awakening - Manila 2026) as Diego
Del Gonzales (The Adventures of Beastie) as Sebastián
Matthew De Lorme (Stuy or Die) as Ernie
Karl Jingco (Eksena PH) as the Pageant Host
PRODUCTION TEAM
Mars Juno Bartolome Neri | Production Stage Manager
Soomin Sun | Production Assistant
Ariel Estrada | Producer
Nacho Tambunting | Associate Producer
MEET THE ARTISTS
Gaven D. Trinidad
Carolina Đỗ is a theatre maker, doer, and proud descendant of Vietnamese freedom fighters and refugees. An alum of the Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab, Fresh Ground Pepper Playground Playgroup, and Orchard Project Greenhouse Lab, Carolina’s writing has also been supported by residencies/fellowships at MacDowell, JACK, The Hearth, Fault Line Theatre, Piper Theater, and Naked Angels. Carolina’s works have also been finalists for the Sokhary Chau Fellowship, Leah Ryan Fund, BricLab, and Bushwick Starr; and semifinalists for Playwrights Realm, Space on Ryder, and Princess Grace. Co-Founding Producing Artistic Leader — The Sống Collective. Creative Director — Mai House Studio. Associate Director for Community Engagement — PlayCo. BFA: Brooklyn College. https://carolinado.com | IG: carolinakaydo
Roger Q. Mason
Vas Eli is an award-winning actor based in NYC. A multidisciplinary artist, he is also a director, writer, producer, dialect coach, educator and painter. He is the founder of BETTERFLY Productions (The Pir, Zoom With Me, Far, Lemonking, The Sketchy Eastern European Show, When & Where). Theater: The Sketchy Eastern European Show (The Players Theater) Tamburlaine (TFANA), Jericho (Attic Theatre), Unearthly Visitants (Triskelion Arts), Island of Dr. Moreau (Piper Theatre), Splitfoot (Edinburgh Fringe), Lincoln Dress (Albany NY, Bucharest) TV: Night Agent, The Endgame, For Life, WeCrashed, The Deuce, The Blacklist; Film: Snakeeater, Varlet, Delenda, Hell House 2, Kidnapping of A Fish, The Naked Woman, Dominant Species, Far From Here.
https://vaseli.org/ | IG: vaseli_vaseli
THANK YOU TO OUR EXTRAO1DINARY ALIENS! SUPPORTERS!
Leviathan Lab's 2025 activities are presented with generous support, in part, from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; the 2024-25 NYS AAPI Community Development Fund administered by CACF: Coalition for Asian American Children & Families; and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
EXTRAO1DINARY ALIENS! is presented, in part, with generous support from the Venturous Theater Fund, a program of Broad Reach Foundation. Venturous Theater Fund supports ambitious new work for the stage and the writers who create it. We make grants to fund the production of audacious, irreverent new plays that are “venturous”—ambitious in scale, epic in scope, challenging in form, controversial in subject matter, experimental in concept, and/or unabashed in their theatricality. The fund also supports artist-driven initiatives that embrace agency for playwrights at all stages of their careers, and that champion creative growth and financial security for dramatists. https://venturoustheaterfund.org/