Her Lola’s 874 Letters, a Musical
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Alexandra Palting (Photo by Cat Rice Photography)
Alex performed her one-woman musical, 0874: A Filipino-American Love Story in April 2022. We can only see clips on her website and YouTube. When it runs again, it will certainly be worth the wait since the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC was willing to sponsor Alex in residency and hire a team of artists to stage the first production.
The story revolves around the 874 letters her maternal grandparents exchanged between 1958 and 1963 with attention to the last two years of this period when her grandfather, Jun Giorla, was doing his surgical residency at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Somerset, New Jersey and her grandmother, then Maria Diaz, remained in Manila. Maria Giorla gave her granddaughter the letters to help her through the five years Alex stayed in Washington, DC while her then-fiancé Tyler was earning his doctorate in Irvine, California.
Alex and her grandma, Dr. Maria Paz Giorla in an interview with her after seeing the show (Source: The Kennedy Center).
The couple married in May 2022 without straining two national postal services with the grandparents’ prolific output. “I’m a singer. The show is my way of writing a love letter,” relates Alex. “It stems from my interest in musical theatre and communicating all the things words cannot say.”
Alex’s assimilation into American society is more complete than her integration into the Filipino community. “I don’t feel I have the right to write a show that represents all Filipinos. As a third generation Filipino American, I’m on the outside looking in within American and Filipino culture.”
The next theatre that produces the show will be treated to ten songs and a narrative spanning 75 minutes. The voice is as impressive as the lyrics. Alex has been singing professionally since appearing at age ten in A Christmas Carol at the previously disgraced Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.
She has a Bachelor of Music degree from University of Delaware, but also has a pragmatic disposition as portrayed by a postgraduate certificate from Harvard Online Business School. Alex might be a lawyer today had the Kennedy Center approached her a day later than it did about developing “0874.” During the Covid lockdown, she studied for the LSAT. A score as little as a point higher than her 89 would have been a sign for Alex to pursue a law degree.
Alex and Baz King (co-composer and arranger of 0874 who also happens to be her cousin) (Source: The Kennedy Center)
The pandemic gave her time to herself and for others. “I also read 50 books and produced virtual concerts that raised over $60,000 for charities.”
Once she pledged allegiance to the arts, there was no looking back. She moved to New York City to be close to Broadway and Off-Broadway opportunities and to support Tyler in his postdoctoral research at Rockefeller University in New York City. She performed in the 2022 season of the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Next year, she’ll appear in an episode of Law and Order. She has voiced several audiobooks, most prominently The Atlas Paradox fantasy series by Olivie Blake on Audible.
Catholic churches will be setting attendance records in 2022 because Christmas falls on a Sunday for a rare Holy Daily Double Day of Obligation. Three Maryland churches will have the added draw of Alex at the ambo. She’s booked as the cantor for Saturday Christmas Eve Mass at the Shrine of St. Anthony in Ellicott City and Christmas day Masses at St. Louis Parish in Clarksville, and Mother Seton Catholic Church in Germantown.
The holidays are a reminder that letters have been the lifeblood of the Christian tradition. In his last epistle (2 Timothy), Paul exhorts his fellow Christians from a Roman prison cell and says his final farewell: "I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith." Here was this flawed man who in the arc of his journey began as an anti-Christian and died a martyr for the same Christ whose followers he once persecuted. He also had flaws he never outgrew, most famously, chauvinism.
In the same vein, it would have been nice to see the changes Maria and Jun experienced during their separation. Does absence really make the heart grow fonder? Or do romantic partners write to sustain a stasis or stalemate in their relationship to be continued when they reunite. The rest of the story is being written by newlyweds Alex and Tyler.
The holidays are Anthony’s favorite time of the year. He brought home a can of evergreen air spray in September. He grew up around conifers in the Pacific Northwest and must admit that this evergreen bathroom blend smells nothing like a Douglas fir. It smells like spray. Things we spray tend to smell the same. If somebody put an insecticide label on the evergreen can, the flies in his trash bin would succumb from the placebo effect. Wishing you nice fragrances and happy holidays!
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