Directed by Andrei Pamintuan, Muli: An OPM Musical follows Anita, a mother of 20 years who finds herself looking beyond the life she built for her family.

Written by Charissa Pammit and Jose Paolo dela Cruz, with music by Nica del Rosario and Matthew Chang of FlipMusic, Muli: An OPM Musical begins with a woman who has spent years making herself available to everyone except herself.
Anita, played by Kakki Teodoro, is a 42-year-old housewife whose life has revolved around her family for the past two decades. Her daughter Kath, played by Janine Teñoso, is now grown, and with that comes a different kind of quiet. Anita has more time to look back at the life she built and the parts of herself that were set aside along the way.
Directed by Andrei Pamintuan, the musical takes Anita through different versions of the life she might have lived, each one opening a door to the person she could have become. But Kath follows her into every possibility. Anita’s dreams are never treated as something she should be ashamed of, nor is motherhood reduced to a sacrifice she must simply accept. She can wonder about the life she might have had while remaining deeply rooted in the one she built with her daughter.

Teodoro gives Anita plenty of personality beyond the familiar image of the self-sacrificing Filipino mother. She is funny, impatient, affectionate, and occasionally overwhelmed, sometimes within the same scene. Teñoso, meanwhile, gives Kath a life of her own outside of being Anita’s daughter. Their scenes carry the quiet tensions that come with growing into different stages of life, without making the distance between them feel like a lack of love.

Muli is genuinely funny, often finding its best moments in details that feel instantly recognizable. Beepers make an appearance, ’90s references are scattered throughout the story, and Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time gets its own moment. The nostalgia never feels forced. It lives in the music, the jokes, the costumes, and the little cultural references that invite the audience to recognize something of their own past.
Del Rosario and Chang wrote 11 original songs that move from acoustic melodies and ’90s bubblegum pop to FlipTop-style hip-hop. The variety gives Anita’s different experiences their own character without losing the distinctly Pinoy character of the production.

The show also makes room for political commentary without letting it take over the story. Money, work, taxes, and the frustrations of everyday life become part of the humor, giving the jokes a little more bite.&nbsp;
For all the places Muli takes Anita, it is her relationship with Kath that ultimately brings her back to herself. She has spent years knowing exactly what her daughter needs from her, from the smallest routines to the decisions that once seemed to belong to both of them. Now Kath is becoming a woman who can make her own choices, leaving Anita to navigate a freedom she has not had to consider in years.

The musical does not ask Anita to regret the years she spent raising her daughter, nor does it ask her to bury the ambitions she had before motherhood. Both can exist within the same life. She can mourn the possibilities she left behind while still finding meaning in the one she chose.
Muli gives Anita the grace to hold all of these versions of herself at once. A mother, a wife, a woman with ambitions of her own, and someone still learning what she wants from the years ahead. As Kath finds her own way forward, Anita begins to find hers too, returning to the pieces of herself that had been quietly waiting beneath the life she spent so many years building for someone else.

Muli: An OPM Musical runs Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays until September 27, 2026, at the Globe Auditorium, Maybank Performing Arts Theater, BGC Arts Center in Taguig.
For tickets, visit <a href="https://premier.ticketworld.com.ph/shows/show.aspx?sh=MULI26">ticketworld</a>.com

A Life Beyond Motherhood in Muli: An OPM Musical

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