A dozen men, all clad in black, are carrying panels of an aluminum and acrylic stage, each five-foot piece filled with colored rope lights. An audience, seated directly in front of the men, watches with curiosity, but their attention is quickly snatched away by a playful voice, shouting a phrase recognized by nearly every Filipino.
“Good morning, madlang people!” exclaims a man called Donut.
Donut, the stagehands, and the audience are preparing for It’s Showtime, a variety show that’s been running for sixteen years. It’s Showtime started on October 24, 2009, and it was only supposed to have one season, with episodes airing once a week, associate producer Katrina Vitara tells ABS-CBN.com.
Vitara adds that It’s Showtime was originally scheduled to run for three months, but audiences enjoyed it so much that it was renewed. In 2012, the show became the country’s noontime staple.
Celebrities in matching blue and yellow varsity jackets stepped onstage to host the show, with talents like Vhong Navarro, Anne Curtis, and Vice Ganda still hosting today.
Image credit: The Filipino Channel
“Instead of having the camera always focused on the hosts, we try to include the audience as much as possible. We interview them, ask them to greet their friends and family, we ask their thoughts on the show,” says Vitara, who’s been working on It’s Showtime since its very first day of production. She names two factors that have driven the show’s success.
First is the genuine bond between the hosts. “Everyone on the hosting team, Anne [Curtis], Vhong [Navarro], all of them, they really do act like that all the time, even off-screen.” Lani Gutierrez, the show’s business unit head, also agrees: “They’re like siblings. With or without the cameras, they have the same dynamic.”
The second – and arguably more important – factor driving It’s Showtime’s success is its bond with the audience.
When audiences enter the studio, Donut greets them, seats them, and preps them for the show.
Image credit: Howard the Duck
Donut teaches the lyrics and steps to It’s Showtime’s songs and dances. Eager to please and in hopes of being captured on camera, audience members practice fervently, while other production crewmen prepare props and scripts, perform soundchecks, and check on the cameras and teleprompters.
“Is everyone excited to be in today’s episode? I hope everyone has fun today, and that you guys like our guests and games,” he tells viewers. “Let’s be on our best behavior on the show, because we film this live. During commercial breaks, some of the hosts will be able to take pictures with you!”
Audience members don’t just watch It’s Showtime: they’re an integral part of it. The show’s collaborative nature is what makes it magical.
Audiences are the most invested when it’s time for the games where the contestants are their peers. It’s not just celebrities, influencers, or popular figures that are in the spotlight. The different groups of Filipinos give It’s Showtime its variety and emotional weight, Gutierrez said.
Since 2009, the program had already made it a priority to regularly spotlight non-celebrities.
When it was hosting weekly dance contests, audience votes and scores could change the outcome, said Vitara. Not only did viewers have the power to dictate the winners and losers, but they also had the power to remove judges.
“You can’t treat the audience as just people in the seats. You need to treat them as guests, as good friends,” Donut tells ABS-CBN.com.
Donut, whose offstage name is Jeffrey Cruz, adds that his role as the jester for the crowd is to make the audience's experience memorable.
“Of course, the hosts are crucial to the show. But the backbone and soul of It’s Showtime are the [Filipino] people. Before live filming, and during commercial breaks, they talk to me about the struggles they face in life, with some of them traveling from different provinces just to watch It’s Showtime in the studio. You can see how much it means to them, so everyone wants to give them a good experience.”
“My job as the jester is to make them happy, but also to make them understand na kasali sila (that they’re a part of it),” he tells ABS-CBN.com.
“When I see the audience resonate with the contestants onstage, it reminds me that we’re here because we all want our fellow Filipinos to be happy,” Gutierrez adds.
The real magic of Showtime goes beyond the stars that host it. Whenever audiences laugh, when they shed tears after hearing about each other’s hardships, when they rejoice as a contestant wins hundreds of thousands of pesos in prize money, It’s Showtime successfully completes their mission to help Filipinos laugh and find their way forward
Read more of our It’s Showtime stories here:
Watch It’s Showtime’s first noontime episode on The Filipino Channel: