{"id":39848,"date":"2026-03-28T08:54:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T00:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=39848"},"modified":"2026-03-28T08:54:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T00:54:34","slug":"when-two-eponines-meet-lea-salonga-and-nathania-ong-on-legacy-representation-and-bts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=39848","title":{"rendered":"When two Eponines meet: Lea Salonga and Nathania Ong on legacy, representation and BTS"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This was before streaming, before global fandoms, before representation became part of everyday conversation. \u201cYou didn\u2019t have so many faces and voices that looked like your own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, inspiration came in fragments. Performers like Rita Moreno, Miyoshi Umeki, Nancy Kwan and\u00a0<\/span>Patrick Adiarte offered glimpses of what might be possible, even if those glimpses were few and far between then.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw Patrick Adiarte in The King And I<\/span>, and found out that he\u2019s Filipino, I\u2019m like, ‘Oh my god, one of us has made it!’\u201d<\/p>\n

It was not about seeing someone who looked exactly like you, she explained, but simply knowing that it could be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That possibility became reality when she was cast to originate the role of Kim in Miss Saigon<\/span> in 1989 on the West End, a performance that would later earn her a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical when the production moved to Broadway in 1991.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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This was before streaming, before global fandoms, before representation became part of everyday conversation. \u201cYou didn\u2019t have so many faces and voices that looked like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--1MUxZARA--\/c_crop,h_1406,w_2500,x_0,y_130\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/03\/27\/lea_salong_and_nathania_ong_hero_photo.jpg?itok=gpfzh41X","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9413,19148,10982,4490,272,19149,14235,10983],"class_list":["post-39848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-bts","tag-eponines","tag-lea","tag-legacy","tag-meet","tag-nathania","tag-representation","tag-salonga","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}