“A VLF Bikol 2026 play returns to Naga through a new theatre collaboration. Some stories are meant to travel. Others are meant to come home.”
In an announcement last August 18, 2026, DALAN Theatre & Events Collaborative, together with Sangre De Naga Theater Company and the Theater Subsector of the Naga City Arts & Culture Coalition, Inc., are bringing AN MGA VOYADOR to Naga City, a new Bikol play by Gene Rey Francisco, directed by seasoned playwright and theatre director Jobert Grey Landeza. The play will be performed on September 4 – 6, 2026, at the Garden Glasshouse, Naga City.
The play comes fresh from Virgin Labfest Bikol 2026, where An Mga Voyador was among the selected works staged in Legazpi City from July 22 to 25, 2026. Francisco, a Bachelor of Performing Arts student of Bicol University, was among the writers selected for the inaugural regional festival.
Now, the story returns to the place at its heart.
A Story Rooted in Naga
Set on the eve of Naga’s fluvial procession following the pandemic, An Mga Voyador follows Pelipe and Artur, voyadores who gather at the bodega of Pay Wantik as they prepare once again for pag-voya.
It is immediately familiar territory for anyone who grew up around Naga’s Peñafrancia tradition.
But beneath that familiarity is a story that allows us to look more closely at the people behind one of the city’s most recognizable traditions—the men who enter the river, carry the devotion, and become part of a ritual witnessed by generations of Bicolanos.
That is what makes bringing An Mga Voyador to Naga particularly meaningful.
This is not simply another stop for a play that has already been staged elsewhere. It is a homecoming.
The people, language, faith, conflicts, and traditions that gave the work its world can now meet the very community from which that world was drawn.
From VLF Bikol to the Naga Stage
For DALAN, this collaboration also represents what regional theatre can become when organizations choose to work across companies and institutions rather than separately.
The production brings together DALAN, Sangre De Naga Theater Company, the Theater Subsector of the Naga City Arts & Culture Coalition, Inc., and Garden Cafe & Glasshouse around one shared purpose: to create more spaces for Bikol stories to be written, developed, staged, and, most importantly, seen by Bikol audiences.
Because a regional work should not end after a festival.
A playwright’s selection should be the beginning of a longer life for the work: more stages, more audiences, more conversations, and more opportunities for the artists who created it.
And there is perhaps no better place for the next life of An Mga Voyador than Naga itself.
Director Jobert Grey Landeza, who also directed the work for VLF Bikol 2026, returns to lead the production. The original VLF staging credited Francisco as playwright and Landeza as director, with the production exploring questions around faith and the traditions surrounding Naga’s voyadores.
Our Stories, On Our Stages
At DALAN, we continue to believe that ang teatro ay isang komunidad.
And part of developing that community is making sure that the stories being created by Bikol writers do not disappear after one run, one festival, or one opportunity.
They deserve to travel.
They deserve to grow.
And whenever possible, they deserve to come home.
An Mga Voyador is a story born from a tradition deeply woven into Naga’s cultural memory. This time, Nagueños will have the opportunity to encounter that story not from the riverbank, not from a procession, and not simply from memory, but from the stage.
The creative team behind An Mga Voyador: Gene Rey Francisco – Writer; Jobert Grey Landeza – Director. It is presented through the collaboration of Sangre De Naga Theater Company and the Theater Subsector of the Naga City Arts & Culture Coalition, Inc., in partnership with DALAN Theatre & Events Collaborative and Garden Cafe.
Click the link below for the schedules, venue information, tickets, and complete event details:
dalankita.com/events/an-mga-voyador
The header features a posterized image of voyadores in action during a recent Peñafrancia fluvial procession (credit: Archdiocese of Caceres)
Key Facts About VLF
The Virgin Labfest (VLF) is an annual Philippine theater festival that showcases brand-new, untried, untested, and unstaged one-act plays. It was established in 2005 to give local playwrights a platform for bold and original material. It is a partnership project by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), Tanghalang Pilipino, and The Writer’s Bloc. The primary venue for national presentations is usually held at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez (the CCP Black Box Theater).