Interview by Sujata Mukhi and Sara Sotto
A successful playwright of fifteen prize-winning plays and a respected economist working for the National Economic Development Authority, Bienvenido Noriega, Jr., at 29, seems to have struck the perfect balance between the arts and the sciences. Upon his parents’ insistence which at the time he was ‘too young to resist ” he took Economics at the University of the Philippines, when he would rather have taken Psychology or Journalism. It was on his scholarship for his masters that quite accidentally he addicted him- self to playwrighting in a course under U.P. ’s indefatigable Amelia Lapena-Bonifacio. Taking his M.P.A. at Harvard University was more of an excuse than anything else to take up courses in Comedy, Modern Drama and Shakespeare.
From writing “corny romantic lyric poetry” and one-page personality analyses of classmates in high school to today’s theatre gems as Bayan-Bayan and W.I.S. , Boy Noriega has come through as an acclaimed play wright of keen perception and refreshing wit that breathes and pulsates through his characters. Presently the Director of the Policy Coordination Staff of NEDA, Noriega , by his own admission still manages to be one of the most prolific play- wrights in the contemporary scene besides now studying for his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the U.P..
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