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This is an excerpt from the MEGA August 2025 Arts and Culture feature
In Into the Woods, James Lapine’s Cinderella doesn’t chase a prince. She slips into the palace, not for love, but for a taste of something else: freedom. She dances, hesitates, runs, and ultimately returns. What she’s really after is a life of her choosing—a life less prescribed by fairy tales, and more informed by clarity.
It’s easy to understand why Arielle Jacobs was drawn to this version of Cinderella. “She’s a lot more independent,” Jacobs says, smiling in the soft light of the Samsung Performing Arts Theater’s balcony, where we’ve found a pocket of calm above the bustle of technical rehearsals.
Below us, a ballet company is tuning a different kind of dream, their classical score floating up like a second voice in our conversation. “She wants to go to the party. She wants to dance. And then, in the end, she discovers that sometimes something that is so charming is not to be trusted.”
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Jacobs speaks gently, like she sings—thoughtfully, melodically. Her presence has that polished poise we often associate with stage stars, but none of the self-importance. If anything, she seems to be in awe of the moment. Dressed in a whim- sical pouf frock for the photoshoot, she exudes bright, theater-kid energy: warm, perky, game for anything.
She’s here in the Philippines for the very first time, playing Cinderella in the most star-studded local productions of Into the Woods to date, with Lea Salonga as The Witch and Eugene Domingo as Jack’s Mother. But more than any marquee name or standing ovation, what seems to matter most to her is something much quieter: she’s finally where her roots are. “It feels magical. It feels powerful. I feel like I’m seeing where my DNA comes from,” she says. “Where my legacy comes from.”
WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF
The word “dream” gets thrown around a lot in theater. Everyone’s dreaming of something—a role, a break, a moment. But for Jacobs, the dream wasn’t always a given.
“I loved singing ever since I was little,” she says, recalling her first experience in a high school production. “I remember that I fell so into the story that I was singing a very emotional song… and I was still crying after I left the stage. I thought—wow, how can something pretend make me feel so much?”
She didn’t plan to be on Broadway, not at first. She didn’t even come from a showbiz family—unless you count her brother, Adam Jacobs, who would eventually originate the title role in Aladdin on Broadway. But even that began as a sibling dare.
“He was more into sports,” she says. “I kind of asked him, ‘Hey, do you want to take lessons with me?’ I convinced him to start. I think the pretty girls were the incentive.”
Their early days involved performances at Filipino community centers in Salinas, California, where her grandparents were active members of the local community.
“They have a big Filipino community in Salinas, so they were part of the Filipino community center,” Jacobs says. “We would go there, and we would perform. My brother and I would sing.”
She continues, “There was just always so much music and yummy food… and it just felt like that was where we really got to immerse ourselves with all of the Filipinos.”
A HOME SHE’S NEVER BEEN TO
Now, Jacobs is decades into a career that includes In the Heights, Wicked, Rent, and of course, Aladdin. She also previously played the Baker’s Wife in a Florida staging of Into the Woods. But this production—this country—has added a new layer to her life that no role ever could.
“It’s wild,” she says, when asked about her first steps on Filipino soil. “I see people here moving, sitting, being how I am naturally. And I didn’t know that it was because it’s in my blood.” She speaks of genetic memory, a connection that bypasses language or logic and moves through the body instead. This experience, for Jacobs, has been a revelation.
She and her husband, during a break in rehearsals, visited Coron, Palawan and spent the day exploring. They snorkeled. They rode ATVs through quiet barangays far from the tourist maps.
“They were taking us through all these remote neighborhoods,” she says. “We got to see where people live outside of the city. I felt like—oh. This is where I come from.”
She says it with conviction, the kind that doesn’t ask for applause. This is a woman who has played leading roles on the biggest stages in the world. But this is different. This is real.
IN THE COMPANY OF FILIPINO TALENT
The local staging of Into the Woods features a powerhouse lineup: Josh dela Cruz, Carla Guevara Laforteza, Jamie Wilson, Joreen Bautista, Nyoy Volante, Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante, Teetin Villanueva, and a host of beloved names in Philippine theater. This experience, for Jacobs, has been a revelation.
“This is only my second all-Filipino cast. The first was on Broadway—Here Lies Love,” she says. “But doing it here? I feel like I’m now a part of this culture of music and theater.”
She lights up when talking about rehearsals. The balance of rigor and joy, of humor and humanity. Eugene Domingo, in particular, seems to be the class clown of the production.
“Everything is so wonderfully organized and very precise,” she says. “But at the same time, very playful. Eugene is the funniest. She’s making jokes on every other page.” There’s admiration in her voice, but also a kind of belonging. She is no longer just a visitor. She is part of something now.
Read more about Into the Woods’s Airelle Jacobs in MEGA’s August 2025 issue now available on Readly, Magzter, Press Reader and Zinio.
Photographed by SHEILA CATILO. Sittings Editor STEF JUAN. Styling JASON MAGO assisted by ARON JAN MALANG. Makeup MIKI LIUSON. Hair MAT T LEDESMA. Shot on location SAMSUNG PERFORMING ARTS THEATER
