In another lifetime, Sheila Francisco and Benedix Ramos might have never crossed paths. She built her career in the bright lights of advertising before stepping into theater at an age when most people are told to settle down. He spent years in Baguio as a nursing student, chasing degrees that didn’t quite fit, before finally listening to the pull of performance. Different lives, different beginnings — yet both found their way to the stage, where fate eventually set them side by side in Bar Boys.

Theater isn’t the most practical of careers. It demands long hours, constant vulnerability, and never promises much stability. But for both Francisco and Ramos, it was the only choice that felt true.

Sheila Francisco: The Leap of Faith

In the ’90s, Sheila Francisco (better known in the industry as Tita Sheila) was already at the top of her field. As vice president of an advertising company she helped build, she had the kind of success most people cling to. But even then, her creativity spilled out in other ways: writing jingles, doing voiceovers, singing in bars at night.

One evening, theater legend Freddie Santos caught one of those performances. He saw in her the spark she’d been trying to contain and wrote her into Joseph the Dreamer, “I was one of the OGs,” she proudly recalled. Francisco thought it would be her one and only brush with the stage. Instead, it became the start of a new life.

“People thought I was crazy to leave advertising for theater,” she said, half amused, half wistful. But she walked away anyway. That one leap brought her to a flurry of roles in Asia, and eventually to London’s National Theatre, where she debuted on the West End at 41. “Life begins at any age,” she tells me, as if reminding us both. “From that time on, I never stopped…” she continued, her voice trailing into the kind of ellipsis that suggests inevitability, the sense of an artist finally home.

Looking back, her decision feels less like career planning and more like a calling. To walk away from something stable for something so uncertain requires a kind of faith. Perhaps that’s why theater suited her so well: it thrives on the unseen, trusting that an empty stage can transform into another world, if only you believe in it enough.

Today, she’s back as Justice Hernandez in Bar Boys. It’s her third time inhabiting the role, and still, she admits, she gets nervous. “Oh my! All the time!” she laughed. The jitters have never left, but they’ve changed shape. They’re less about fear than about reverence, a way of honoring the story every time she steps into the light.

The “Golden Age” of Theater

Francisco has also seen the industry itself transform. “Theater has never been like this before!” she said, marveling at the sheer number of productions running at once. For her, the growth comes from seeds planted long ago — workshops at Rep, Trumpets, PETA — that shaped generations of performers and audiences.

Those seeds, she believes, are finally blooming.

But not every actor’s beginnings trace back to those workshops. Her co-star, Benedix Ramos, didn’t grow up in that ecosystem. His story began far from Manila’s theater circles, in the classrooms and hospitals of Baguio, where he trained as a nursing student. If Sheila’s path was sparked by the industry’s early seedlings, Benedix’s was self-sown, through small acts of persistence that eventually pushed him toward the same stage.

Benedix Ramos: From Baguio To Bar Boys

Ramos’s path was anything but straight. He studied nursing for three years in Baguio before shifting to mass communication, drawn by his interest in media and storytelling. That was when he started vlogging and editing videos on his first laptop, experimenting with ways to tell stories. But stability was hard to come by, and money eventually began to run short. At one point, he even tried to pawn that same laptop (the one where he had begun shaping his creative voice) but the pawnshop refused it because the mousepad was broken. “That was my first laptop. I was ready,” he said. Had they taken it, he might have walked away from the creative path entirely.

With no way to pay tuition, he stopped going to school. The very next day, he found work instead, first as a trainee, then quickly as an English teacher for Chinese students. The job carried him through, buying him time until something bigger arrived.

That “something” came during the pandemic. One sleepless dawn in Baguio, he streamed Ang Huling El Bimbo online. Mist hung over the hills outside his window. Overcome, he stood up, raised his hand, and declared into the quiet: “I, Benedix Ramos, will be part of something big.”

He laughs now when he remembers it, but within days a director reached out on Facebook, inviting him to Manila. What began as a private declaration in the early morning hours quickly turned into the first real step toward a life onstage.

Mainstream work followed: commercials, digital series, even a stint as a Pinoy Big Brother housemate. But when auditions for theater opened, Ramos chose the stage, despite friends warning it was a “downgrade.” “How is it a downgrade,” he asked, “when you’re with the best people in the industry? Theater is so alive and so full of passion… it feels like home.”

Finding Erik

His breakthrough arrived with Bar Boys. Cast as Erik, a role made iconic on screen by Carlo Aquino, Ramos felt the weight of expectations. “I looked up to Carlo Aquino. I felt so unworthy,” he admitted. But once rehearsals began, the doubt gave way to something more important: the responsibility to tell the story truthfully.

Onstage, he learned lessons that went beyond lines or blocking. Francisco herself became a mentor, teaching him the power of presence. “She was the first to make me realize how important eye contact is,” Ramos said. “That connection, that’s what I needed in every scene.”

Now stepping into Erik for the third time, Ramos calls it “returning the favor.” He hopes audiences will see not just Erik’s hardships but the glimmer of possibility that defines him. “Just a hint of hopefulness,” Ramos said. “Not too much, but enough.”

And if this is his final run in the role? “I don’t know if I’m ready to let go,” he admitted. “This character is really special to me.”

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Francisco and Ramos could not be more different in age or background: one walked away from a stable career in her 30s, the other stumbled through uncertainty until the right door opened. Yet both speak of seeds: the ones planted by theater workshops decades ago, and the ones a young man once planted in the mist of a Baguio dawn.

For Francisco, every performance is an offering. “Whatever was given to me is God-given,” she said. “It’s a blessing when you come out there and tell the story.” For Ramos, every performance is proof that persistence, hope, and even a little faith in the unseen can alter the course of a life.

On the stage of Bar Boys, their journeys intersect — a veteran who leapt, a newcomer who persisted — together proving that the seeds we plant, however unlikely, always have a way of finding the light.

Bar Boys: The Musical runs from October 24 to November 23, 2025 at Hyundai Hall, Areté, Quezon City. This limited engagement brings the story back to the stage with an ensemble cast of today’s most exciting talents. Tickets are available at bit.ly/barboystickets