Johnny Delgado
Chairman of the Board

Johnny Delgado, also known as Juan Marasigan Feleo, was born in Manila on Febuary 29, 1948 to film director Ben Feleo and educator Victorina Marasigan.  Husband to filmmaker and actress Laurice Guillen and father to Ana Feleo, opera singer and theatre actress, and Ina Feleo, film, theatre and TV actress.

Johnny Delgado is one of the most sought-after and respected veteran actors in Philippine cinema today.  Known for his unpredictable nature and versatility as an actor, Delgado began his acting career without much preparation, taking acting seriously only after a few films with his father.   He ventured into theatre, and groped at different techniques until he created for himself a process.  From then on, he began acting for films that marked his career. Alamat ni Julian Makabayan (by Celso Ad Castillo),  Kakaba-kaba Ka Ba? (by Mike de Leon), and Salome (by Laurice Guillen) to name a few.

Since then, Delgado has garnered awards from different award giving bodies, but perhaps his greatest success was when he became the Chairman of the Actors Workshop Foundation.  He became a friend of Eric Morris (of the Eric Morris System), and ran the foundation providing training for professional actors – a luxury he didn’t have when he himself started acting. 

Belonging to a family of artists (his aunt, screenwriter and educator Marina Feleo Gonzalez, and cousins, non-fiction writer Anita Feleo, sculptor and visual artist Roberto Feleo, actor Jojo Gonzalez), genes could have only brought him so far.  The longevity of his career proves to be the result of a ceaseless passion to act and create until his last breath.

22 year old Ina Feleo has just won best actress as Tanya in Endo in this year’s Cinemalaya.  The daughter of Laurice Guillen and Johnny Delgado, everyone was certain that she would become an actress, but Ina had already made big plans to be a dancer.  She had taken classes in jazz and ballet at Powerdance when she was young, and has been part of the Bayanihan for five years now.  A 2006 Ateneo graduate with a degree in Creative Writing, she was presented with the Loyola School Dean’s Award for the Arts in Dance.  Plus, she was also the 2000 First National Champion in Figure Skating.

Ina’s own background in theatre came mostly from doing three plays with Tanghalang Ateneo (TA) – the most recent, TA’s The Glass Menagerie, and  Romeo and Juliet, being her most major roles.  Before she even did Romeo and Juliet, Ina joined an acting workshop under the Actor’s Workshop Foundation.  She enjoyed it so much she went looking for avenues to explore what acting exercises she had learned.  But her decision to audition for Cinemalaya was prompted by Sockie Fernandez, who was making her first feature film and who had asked Ina to audition for a small role.   In Cinemalaya, that meant a screen test before a panel.  Endo’s director was part of the panel, and that’s how she ended up reading his script, getting the part of the female lead, and winning best actress.

Ina believes that acting is a way of discovering new aspects of herself in every role.  “And to be able to express it, to make it real, is amazing.”  And that includes being able to affect people with her acting as well.  People have come up to her to say that Endo moved them.  “I want to get better.  I want to learn.  And eventually, I want to make and direct films.”  But in the meantime, she is still dancing. – Pia Rojas, from Preview Magazine’s Our Annual Creative IT List

Ana Guillen Feleo,  lyric soprano, received her education at the College of Music, University of the Philippines under the tutelage of Professor Emeritus Fides Cuyugan- Asensio.

She has performed in oratorios, concerts, operas and musicals such as Magnificat, Sino ka ba, Jose Rizal, Alikabok, Something To Crow About, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Oraciones, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Handel’s Messiah, Saint Saen’s Christmas Oratorio, Gilas!, Operanow I, Mozart’s Magic Flute, Masterclass and many more.

 She has worked with production companies such as Trumpets, Musikat, Tanghalang Pilipino, Philippine Opera Company, Music Theater Foundation of the Philippines, Opera Guild Foundation, Klassiko Filipino, CCP, National Commission on Culture and the Arts, UNESCO and other productions.  Ana Feleo has performed with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra and Manila Philharmonic Orchestra.  Her more significant roles are as Paz Pardo de Tavera Luna, the murdered wife of Luna, in the world premiere of the Filipino opera, “Spoliarium: Juan Luna”,  written by Prof. Fides Asensio and composed by Maestro Ryan Cayabyab; Leonor in Tanghalang Pilipino’s “Pilipinas Circa 1907”, written by Nick Tiongson with musical direction by Maestro Chino Toledo, and Agueda in the Filipino opera, “Mayo Bisperas ng Liwanag”, libretto by Fides Asensio and music by the late Prof. Rey T. Paguio.

She is a resident soloist of the world-renowned Bayanihan National Folk Dance Company and has performed with them since 2003.

She has represented her country as a classical performer for the Philippine Embassies and Diplomatic Corps in numerous arts festivals here and abroad. In 2003, she performed for Procter and Gamble’s Austral-Asia Awards Night in Singapore, and sang for the International Festival for the Arts at the Istana Budaya Theater in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 2004, she performed at the Peacock Theater under Sadlers Wells Production in London,  at the FORUM Marina Park in Barcelona, at the Ritz in Madrid in celebration of the Philippine Independence Day, and at the Monte Carlo in Monaco.  In 2005 she performed at the Vietnam Opera house in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, at the Plenary Hall of the International Convention Center, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, and in Beijing, China for the Department of Tourism. In 2006, she performed again in Brunei at the Risqun Hotel under the auspicesof the Philippine Embassy and conducted a 10-day Basic Vocal Performance Workshop at the ICC for the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports. She was also invited to perform with Mr. Francisco Aseniero, tenor, and  Prof. Reynaldo Reyes, pianist, under the auspices of the Philippine Embassies at the American Church in Paris, The Saint Marienne Church in Berlin and the “De Duif” in Amsterdam in 2006.

Ana is also a scholar and an acting facilitator for Actors Workshop Foundation that teaches Eric Morris System.

This year, she returned to Brunei to give a concert, with tenor, Jonathan Badon, for the 109^th Independence Day Celebration held at the International Convention Center.

Ana Feleo sang the National Anthem for the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Awards held at the CCP Main Theater and at the Bayanihan National Folk Dance Company’s 50^th Anniversary celebration at the Shangrila Mall.

CRITIQUES:

“Ana, too, scored in the shapely delicacy of her singing of "Habanera" and the melodic "Sa Kabukiran." In rendering the aria, she gave an enchanting embodiment of a flirtatious, capriciously amoral Carmen with her creamy-like soprano and captivating personality.”

 –Nestor Mata, Malaya

 “Ana was visually and vocally stunning as Carmen.”

= Pablo Tariman, Phil. Daily Inquirer

"In the process, a star is born. Ana Guillen Feleo, daughter of Laurice Guillen and Johnny Delgado. Ana’s voice possesses theatricality, Ana has stage presence (what beautiful eyes, too), and Ana packs a wallop when she dishes Callas, tit for tat.”

-  Jullie Yap Daza, Manila Bulletin

“The guest artist, Ana Feleo, charmed the crowd with her persuasive stage presence, her vocal strength and engaging performance while belting out classic numbers from ‘Carmen’ such as Seguedilla and Habanera,”

- Ambassador Arguelles , Amsterdam