First hand Frenemy experience

My theater enthusiast friends have given me one account on Broadway Tony Award winner Lea Salonga.  They said that Lea is not the friendliest toward filipino who waited at stage doors after watching her perform.  Yet Lea is friendly and animated enough with Americans.  So my friends dubbed her the "Frenemy".  They love her for her talent and yet hates her for how she treated them.  Hence a friend and an enemy, frenemy.

I thought this account of Lea is at the very least intriguing.   I was not yet prepared to form a hard opinion of her based on this account.  After all, I have admired Lea since she snagged the role of Kim in the West End production of Miss Saigon.  Then when the show was brought to Broadway, she also played Kim garnering her a Tony Award for best actress in a musical.  She also won the best actress in the Laurence Olivier Award in London.  So her talent and singing prowess is not to be question.  I have listened to her sing on my own copy of Miss Saigon soundtrack countless of times that I could sing along pretty much 80% of the track.  Needless to say I was a big fan.

I was a big fan enough that when my friends invited me to travel to NYC to watch her on her new musical Allegiance, I jumped into the chance to see her perform first hand. But it was not meant to be since she was absent during the show that I saw.  It was her understudy that I saw.  So I was sorely disappointed.

When another chance came up to see her perform in person, I took it.  My friends invited me again to see her perform in Once on This Island.  Finally I saw her live and indeed her talent and singing did not disappoint.  On a side note, I did not care for the musical but seeing Lea live did not dampen my mood.  Now came the moment to meet her at the stage door.  True enough, she was aloof towards me, a Filipino fan ,yet animated towards the American fan.  So I guess my friends' account of her when they met her before was accurate.  She is not friendly to Filipinos.  Now I can form my own opinion of her on closer acquaintance.  For my friends, she is still the Frenemy, but to me she is just the enemy.  Ever since that day, I have sworn never again to patronize her shows.  I will not fly to NYC just to see her.  Even if she has a show in LA, I will not go see it.  No need wasting my money on her.