Stage FX, the high school drama club of Xavier School in San Juan, is set to perform three speculative fiction works adapted for the stage on September 17, 18, and 19, 2025 from 4 to 6 pm at the Gotuaco-Yu Auditorium of the school. The event, dubbed “CMD+CTRL,” is free and open to the general public.
The three pieces to be performed are “Exit Plan,” “Controller 13”, and “Storm Song”, taken from the short fiction collection “Mouths to Speak, Voices to Sing”, written by award-winning author Kenneth Yu and published by Penguin Random House SEA.
“This is the 31st year of Stage FX,” said Nikky Santos, the club moderator and director. “I’ve happily moderated the last 11 years and there is such a lot of stage talent here at Xavier. We’ve been performing various plays and musicals annually and it’s really cool for us to adapt and stage these pieces by Kenneth, a Xavier alumnus, to celebrate our anniversary. I’m proud of all my students, including those we have invited from other schools who are joining us in this year’s production.”
Yu, a staunch reading advocate, has pushed genre fiction by Filipinos through his fiction website, philippinegenrestories.com, as well as publishing his own work. Speculative fiction–defined as fiction outside the real world such as fantasy, horror, and science fiction, and which encompasses futuristic, supernatural, and other imagined elements–together with the more grounded genre of crime, mystery and suspense, make up the bulk of the type of stories that Yu has championed. “Mouths to Speak, Voices to Sing” was released in 2024 and is his first collection. His second collection, “The Greatest Fight of Sunny Granada and Other Stories” was released in early 2025 and is published by Anvil Publishing.
CMD+CTRL is co-presented with The Adrenaline Group, principally sponsored by Jollibee and supported by Rebisco.
