Filipina-led ‘Olympic Hopefuls’ scores at Edinburgh Fringe 2026
In the warm summer months, a frenzy takes over Edinburgh, Scotland. From Edinburgh Fringe, the world’s largest performing arts festival, to the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which draws the likes of Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead and acclaimed Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell, Scotland’s capital becomes art at its most limitless. And yet, despite the absolute wonderland of possibility, I didn’t think I would find myself in the heart of Edinburgh, listening to the Philippine national anthem blasted through loudspeakers.
Down a winding staircase in the New Town, lifelong friends Isabelle, Mia, Viola and Cheryl form the first Filipino Women’s Olympic curling team and take to the ice. That’s the premise of the comedy Olympic Hopefuls, by Filipino-American playwright Hortense Gerardo, which made its international debut at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.
Four women take to the ice to defy the odds in playwright Hortense Gerardo’s ‘Olympic Hopefuls’
The story of Olympic Hopefuls tenderly represents Filipino cultural values of community, resilience and compassion through the close friendships of the cast, who share familial love for each other, all the way from their youth to later life. Cheryl, played by Cheryl Daro, is ever business-minded and refuses to allow herself to be pushed to the side. Mia, played by Susan Ly, is a chef who has recently divorced from her husband. Isabelle, played by Francesca Fernandez, is disappointed with her latest novel’s poor sales. Viola, played by Elizabeth Pan, is navigating changing relationships with her husband and son. All four are dealing with the journey of aging and the slow dissipation of once-zealous, ambitious dreams. In response, our heroines decide to embark on a comedically campy quest for gold.
Irony, improbability, and taking to the ice
The premise of tropical heritage meeting a winter sport is a comedic irony in itself. Naturally, my first question was an obvious one: “Why curling?” Gerardo responds, “These past three years since I started writing this, we learned about the Philippines men’s curling team. They were actually very close to qualifying for the Winter Olympics this year and there was something about that element of surprise I wanted to bring out with respect to women of an age.”
The Philippines’ men’s curling team, which competed at the Olympic Qualification Event last December, brought the nation to the closest it had been to team sport representation at the Winter Olympics. Suddenly, the far-fetched hook didn’t seem so fantastical anymore. But, onstage at the Edinburgh Fringe, by the time the final rounds of stones began to slide across the ice, the question of farfetched premises flew out the window. Gerardo’s lovable crew of friends—seasoned professionals, mothers and wives—were not once challenged by obstacles of impossibility.
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Gerardo says, “There’s a common theme that I hear in my friend’s stories and that is this notion that after a certain age, you start to disappear. Society doesn’t actually see you anymore, and your utility to society somewhat wanes.” This notion becomes Gerardo’s driving force behind Olympic Hopefuls. “We need more films and theater of strong and vital women of an age,” she says. Daro adds, “The second life starts in middle life. The dynamic of these women and who they are at this point in their lives and in these different spaces—like business and family— are a lot of things we don’t get to see very often. It’s important to have that in there.” In a refreshingly amusing way, Gerardo, alongside the cast and creative team, centers the narrative on celebrating the vigor and capabilities of women who are all too often marginalized.
Visibility and range in Western media
Discussing Filipino representation in mainstream Western entertainment, Daro says, “At this point in art and theater expression, Filipinos are new and still coming onto the scene. From an actor’s perspective, roles for Asian women in general are still not at a full range of expression.” She cites shows like the medical drama The Pitt that finally portray Filipinos working as nurses after years of their prevalence in the US healthcare sphere. Yet, Olympic Hopefuls allows Filipino women in Western media to transcend the confines of their cultural identities, while still carrying that cultural heritage at the very heart of their experiences. From culturally familiar monologues detailing decades-old memories of “chasing around a chicken in old Quezon City,” or struggling to come to terms with a bicultural upbringing in America, to the broader, existential reckoning of “How did this become my life?!”—the women of Olympic Hopefuls straddle mixed heritage identities and the all-too-relatable plight of purpose and the search to become part of something bigger than oneself.
“My brother and I and all my cousins who were raised in the States with parents as first-generation immigrants were expected to hold onto Filipino traditions but also to integrate with American society,” Gerardo says. She continues, “For a lot of people, the big dream was to come to America and make it big. The American Dream in general has been something that’s been part of an optimism that people have clung to even to their own detriment.” It is these reflective thoughts that underlie the play’s comic premise. Olympic Hopefuls takes that inherited dream and asks what comes next, as audiences cheer on Isabelle, Mia, Viola, and Cheryl as they hurtle on in their quest for more.
‘A little comedy, a little tenderness’
Olympic Hopefuls creates a balance between comedy and heavier themes of diaspora culture, aging and empowerment. This balance is where Gerardo is most at home: “As a writer, that has always been my sweet spot… a little bit of comedy, a little bit of tenderness.” From Gerardo’s perspective, the harmony of comedy and sincerity makes the more difficult reckonings easier to grapple with. This is carried over into the cast’s performances. The actors shift back and forth from the seriousness of the intimate conversations between friends and monologues about personal inner conflict to the comedy of scenes like trying out curling for the first time. Ly, who plays Mia, sees the same resilience in the real world, “In everyday life, you just gotta keep on trucking.”
In their pursuit of Olympic gold, and their journey to the Edinburgh Fringe, these “Olympic Hopefuls” represent Filipino communities on the world stage both within and outside the play itself.
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