Pinky Amador as the legendary Edith Piaf

Woohoo! BFF Pinky Amador will be celebrating her 30th year in show business this year and will mark her milestone playing Edith Gassion in Atlantis Production's staging of Pam Gem's critically acclaimed musical  "Piaf".

The story revolves around the life of the legendary French singer nicknamed  La Môme Piaf  (or baby sparrow) as a self-destructive, promiscuous, alcoholic junkie. The title of the play comes from her signature song which I'm sure everyone is familiar with La vie en rose.

According to Atlantis, in this new Piaf version "Gems has reworked her classic 1978 play, vividly capturing the glamour and squalor the rise and fall of this complex, fragile and enigmatic performer."

I'm excited to see Pinky onstage and curious on how she will play Piaf which has been her dream role for years! In the last couple of years, she has been relentlessly studying and training for the role. She even went to the extent of perfecting her French, diligently studying in Alliance Francaise. Early this year, she flew to Paris together with the director Bobby Garcia to pay homage to Piaf and  ask permission to play her part. Apparently, some actresses who have were doing or attempting to do the role have gotten into accidents.

Mind you, Pink  is very very busy. Aside from Piaf, she juggles being a full time director of the Theater Arts department of the Meridian International or MINT College and plays a villain role in the hit teleserye of ABS-CBN "Be careful with my heart".

Gina Alajar, Pinky Amador and Bobby Garcia

Piaf will run until March 24 at the Carlos P. Romulo auditorium, RCBC Plaza (purchase tickets online at ticketworld). The play is directed by Bobby Garcia who is also celebrating his 20th year milestone as stage director. Also in the cast are: Giselle Töngi-Walters as Marlene Dietrich,  Ima Castro as Toine,  and the men of Piaf as played by Jamie Wilson, Reuben Uy, Altair Alonzo, Hans Eckstein, Mako Alonso, Nel Gomez and Sandino Martin.

Postscript:  Pinky, the director, the whole cast and crew were absolutely brilliant! Bravo!!  Note that the play is rated PG due to the strong language and sexual situations.