PROFILES IN ACTIVISM | Meet Loida Nicolas Lewis, One of the World's 100 Most Influential Filipina Women Leaders

NEW YORK CITY |  Between now and October 4, 2013, Loida Nicolas-Lewis will stay on one message. As the lead producer of the New York premiere of NOLI ME TANGERE opera, Ms. Lewis will be hard at work raising funds for the show, raising awareness for it among the members of her vast network and doing her best to get as many people as possible to see this unique production.

With a book by Guillermo Tolentino and music by Felipe de Leon, the NOLI opera has been Ms. Lewis's baby project ever since saw it in a Chicago production and was appropriately wowed. It is the first full-length Western-style opera that the Philippines has produced. Based on Dr. Jose P. Rizal's important novel about the oppressive Spanish rule of the Philippines for 333 years, the NOLI opera performs October 4–6, 2013 at the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College.

Visit the official website of the NOLI ME TANGERE opera to purchase tickets or get more information: http://nolimetangereoperanyc.org/

Me and Ms. Loida Nicolas Lewis at the Asia Society

Ms. Nicolas-Lewis has been fervent about her building of support for the NOLI opera. What’s at stake goes far beyond ensuring the success of this stage production. If given the right level of support, the East Coast premiere of the NOLI opera could serve as a model for the globalization of Philippine classical music and theatrical performance. Can we promote and sustain the arts and culture we have created?  How do we U.S. Filipinos and Filipino Americans build, cultivate and engage passionate communities that will rally for arts and culture over materialism — for the perpetuation of Philippine art forms and musical literature that transcend language barriers?

"Nothing happens in the world if it does not happen in New York," Ms. Nicolas-Lewis said. “The Philippines has now shed its title as ‘Sick Man of Asia’ and is now considered a rising star. Our mother country [now has the third highest growth rate] in Growth Domestic Product for 2012. We extended a $1-billion loan to the International Monetary Fund to stabilize the economy of our former colonial master Spain. It is time for us Filipino Americans to show the world that we are a cultured people.”

Soon after the October premiere of the NOLI opera, Ms. Nicolas-Lewis will fly to San Francisco. Why? She has been tapped to speak at the Global Filipina Women: Power & Influence as part of the 10th Filipina Leadership Summit from October 24 to October 26, 2013 in San Francisco at the Mark Hopkins InterContinental Hotel.

Ms. Nicolas-Lewis will receive an award as among the 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World (FWN Global 100). The organizers of the Filipinas Women's Network has dubbed this working recognition award as "the ultimate showcase of the Filipino community’s most inspiring individuals in the private and public sectors, who exemplify innovation, femtorship, professionalism, empowerment and leadership." It is "an important initiative of Pinay Power 2020," says FWN Founder Marily Mondejar.

Last year, Ms. Nicolas-Lewis was named "China's newest public enemy Number 1." As the national chair of the US Pinoys for Good Governance, she held a press conference in Manila on July 14 to announce a worldwide campaign to “Boycott Made in China Products.”  She explained that her group's call for the global boycott of all kinds of China-made products was a way of matching China's diplomatic and military arrogance in claiming ownership of the Scarborough Shoal and the Kalayaan group of islands in the West Philippine Sea.

"We have to internationalize the issue," she said, noting the rich oil resources in those islands. "Who will share this black gold? Who will share the natural gas?"

China’s government-controlled media fired back with a newscast calling on the Chinese people to boycott a chain of convenience stores in China believed to be owned by Ms. Nicolas-Lewis. She used to own a Cayman company that operates retail convenience stores in four Chinese cities: Xiamen, Chengdu, Suzhou and Guangzhou. Unfortunately for her former Chinese business partners who bought out her ownership interest in the “Beatrice” stores – at a substantial discount – several years ago, the China authorities are boycotting a wholly-owned Chinese business.

Here is a video of an NTD.TV newscast of Ms. Nicolas-Lewis articulating her political cause:



This past August, Ms. Nicolas-Lewis spoke again at an intimate conversation with the Filipino American Press Club of New York. In the following video, prepared by New York Balita and shot at the Jeepney GastroPub, she explains her political stance to a group of mostly young people and interested insiders:

BIOGRAPHY | Loida Nicolas Lewis served as Chair and CEO of TLC Beatrice International, a $2 billion multinational food company with operations all across Europe, from 1994-2000. She assumed the leadership of one of the largest companies in the U.S. after the death of her husband, the African-American, Wall Street financier Reginald F. Lewis, and won over a skeptical business community by moving quickly to sell assets including the corporate jet, paying down debt, downsizing the New York corporate staff by 50 percent and increasing earnings. After successfully running the company for six years, she completed the sale of TLC Beatrice and its related businesses in 2000, achieving a 35 percent on investment for its shareholders.

In 1987, her late husband, Reginald, a Harvard Law graduate, had bid for and won the international operations of Beatrice International in a $1 billion leveraged buyout that at the time was the largest of its kind. In 1992, he was listed by Forbes Magazine as among the 400 wealthiest Americans. In 1995, Loida appeared on the cover of Working Woman magazine as the Top Business Woman in America.

Currently, Loida is Chair and CEO of TLC Beatrice, LLC, a family investment firm. A lawyer by profession, admitted to practice in the Philippines and New York, she was the first Filipina woman to pass the New York bar without attending law school in the United States.

After having won her discrimination case against the US Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1987 and been awarded three years pay back, Loida served for ten years as General Attorney with the INS. She co-authored "Hot to Get A Green Card," now in its 10th edition and a best-seller in its genre.

Loida is Chair of the Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, which has donated millions of dollars to Harvard Law School, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland's African-American History and Culture, and Virginia State University. There is a Reginald F. Lewis International Law building at Harvard and the Reginald F. Lewis School of Business at Virginia State University.

She also supports Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Asian Pacific American Film, Asian American Arts Alliance, Asian American Federation of New York, Asian American Foundation, Diversity Theater and Ma-Yi Theater.

Loida was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Reporter and the Apollo Theater Foundation.

She has two daughters, both cum laude A.B. graduates of Harvard University; Leslie is an actor and Christina is a freelance writer following a five-year stint as a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. She has three grandchildren, Christian, Savilla, Calvin and two sons-in-law, Gavin Sword and Dan Halpern.

CONVERSATIONS | The Love Songs of Ali Ewoldt and Adam Jacobs

I met Adam Jacobs and Ali Ewoldt, two of the most exceptional Broadway artists working today, at the Ugly Kitchen in the Lower East Side. (The food was delicious, by the way.) Adam and Ali were preparing for a concert at Town Hall on Saturday February 23. 

This was not the first time we've met. Adam and I first met at a fabulous dinner in the apartment of the former Consul General of the Philippines in New York Cecilia Rebong located in the Upper East Side.  Ali was introduced to me by my friend Jose Llana.  Ali, Jose and I traveled to Romania together.  We were the American guest artists at an international festival of musical performing artists in Bucharest.

The concert's producers tell me that tickets for A Heart Full of Love are priced at $20. That's an exceptional price for what promises to be a wonderful 90-minute evening. 

Believe me: Adam and Ali are the real deal. Just click the video excerpt from a rehearsal at the end of this piece. What follows is our conversation:


NEW YORK CITY |  What’s the concert about? Love, actually.

“It’s an exploration of love,” says the supremely talented Broadway actor Adam Jacobs (The Lion King), “There are many different types of love, and the concert features a wide array of styles and music from different shows.”

To which Ali Ewoldt, the divinely operatic singer-dancer (West Side Story) adds, “Through songs, we examine love for a child, love for performance in theater, love between two people that we explore in our duets, love and prayers. You don’t want a concert like this to be one-note. For me it is exciting and interesting and innovative.”

New York City’s famous venue Town Hall regularly sees and hears an array of Broadway stars and so-and-so’s on its wide stage.  Some of them profess about love even.  What’s special about A Heart Full of Love  – a one-night-only concert 8 p.m. Saturday February 23 — is the match-up between Adam Jacobs and Ali Ewoldt:  the freshness of their talents on vivid display.

Both Ewoldt and Jacobs sport real singing chops.  Ewoldt, a petite brunette soprano, can sing beautiful circles around so many of her peers. Jacobs, with his dark eyes and olive skin, takes on vocal challenges that allow him to move from pride rock (Simba in The Lion King) to romantic heights (The Light in the Piazza).

Many of the compositions featured in A Heart Full of Love trade in fresh novelty. Where else but here can you hear gorgeous songs from a new musical composed by Filipino-American composer Fabian Obispo (The Long Season)? How else will you sample the works from the rising songwriting team Sam Carner and Derek Gregor (Sing But Don’t Tell and The Island Song)?

About 90 minutes long, performed without an intermission, A Heart Full of Love reunites two alums of Broadway’s Les Misérables (she was the Cosette to his Marius), and for those movie-musical aficionados who could not stand to watch live-singing on film, here is a real live performance where you won’t need to scream a scream as time goes by.

Adam Jacobs, Ali Ewoldt and me at the Ugly Kitchen in New York

So heartfelt is the stage chemistry between Jacobs and Ewoldt that they were handpicked instantly for this concert after they were seen together at a gala event last year.  At a recent photo call at the Ugly Kitchen in the Lower East Side, Jacobs recalls that this Town Hall Concert came about after the two singers were showcased in the 50th anniversary of the Filipino Reporter, a local publication. Within days of that guest appearance last year, the Town Hall was booked for a February stint.

“It’s going to be a fun ride,” Jacobs says. “Our musical director David Dabbon has come up with brilliant mash-ups of popular Broadway pieces.  I look forward to performing those songs. Audiences will recognize the tunes but will hear them in a new way.” And the handsome actor, who has also memorably tackled Tony, the love-struck toughie in West Side Story and the Engineer pimp in Miss Saigon, has prepared a specific set of numbers which will show a different side of himself as a performer.

“I will give you a hint,” says Jacobs, who will soon star as the masked legend Zorro in the Alliance Theatre production of the Gipsy Kings-scored musical that will play Atlanta, Georgia, in April. ”It is a foray into a ‘new genre.’ I don’t want to give too much away, but it is not music from a specific show. I will foray into another side of myself which I know other people have not seen.” In other words, it teases us into seeing Jacobs anew, had he taken an alternative direction in his career.

Ewoldt relishes the opportunity to extend herself in new ways, too. She says, “Vocally I am doing coloratura stuff that I have not done before. I will do physical comedy things. I will sing a song in Tagalog language, which I have never done professionally before.

Ewoldt describes a song she will perform called “I Won’t Mind” written by Jeff Blumenkrantz as “simple but heartfelt and honest and really gorgeous and emotional.”

Ewoldt then introduces me to composer Sam Carner, who is sitting nearby. Gregor says that A Heart Full of Love gives him a chance to shine through three songs from different shows that he and his songwriting partner Derek Gregor have written.


Adam Jacobs will sing a solo from their new musical comedy Unlock’d, about four star-crossed lovers in 18th century England, which won a Richard Rodgers Award and went on to be produced at the 2007 New York Musical Festival. Unlock’d will premiere Off-Broadway this coming summer with the Prospect Theatre Company at the Duke on 42nd St.

Thanks to the enthusiastic singers from Broadway Barkada who will accompany Ewoldt and Jacobs, A Heart Full of Love will also feature a group number called “So Many Windows” from Island Song, a new Cartner and Gregor musical that has been in development since 2009 and will receive a workshop in Seattle.

“Ali and I went to college [Yale University] together, but we did not know each other then,” Carner recalls. “We ended up speaking in a panel as alums back in Yale. We chatted for several hours on train trip.  I introduced her to my writing partner, and we started working together on various projects.”

The last time Ewoldt and Jacobs sang together on a concert stage was an all-Filipino tribute show for musical theater composer Stephen Sondheim at Lincoln Center in 2011.  They sang “One Hand, One Heart” from West Side Story. What is their takeaway after being paired so frequently? Mutual respect, actually.

“When we were working on Les Miz, it was very easy to fall in love with Ali every night,” Jacobs says. “To share with her an entire concert is a real treat. We’ve performed together before but nothing on this scale.”

To which Ewoldt adds, “I love working with Adam. We’ve become really good friends over the years. This concert is a great challenge for us, a great chance to expand.” -- rg


Town Hall is located at 143 W. 43rd St. For tickets, priced at $20, visit www.ticketmaster.com/event/03004973A4EEAAD6.


Conceived by Victor Lirio, A Heart Full of Love will benefit the 3rd The Outstanding Filipino Americans in New York (TOFA-NY) Awards, an annual award ceremony that recognizes exemplary Filipino-Americans in the New York tri-State held in October; and the Mindoro Healthcare Consulting’s current research to find a cure for multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord.