INQUIRER.NET (MAKATI CITY, PHILIPPINES) -- Ron Muriera is San Jose Stage Company’s new development director. He’s a stand-up comedian, but this new gig is no laughing matter.
Muriera is responsible for raising funds for the group, which includes researching for available grants and preparing the proposal applications. He also handles donor relations, which includes reaching out to potential donors and cultivating relationships with them.
He started his stand-up comedy career during his student days at San Francisco State University, trying his hand at clubs like Holy City Zoo, The Other Cafe and The Punch Line. “I was probably one of the younger would be stand-up comedians at age 18 at the time.”
He became one of the founding members of Fil-Am comedy troupe Tongue In A Mood, whose other founders include Kennedy Kabasares, Rex Navarette and Allan Manalo (who went on to reconfigure Bindlestiff Studio in San Francisco into a Filipino American performance venue and theatre group).
Muriera became involved in theater work by way of a professor and a classmate. “My Filipino American Studies instructor, Oscar Peñaranda, announced auditions by the Asian American Theater Workshop (which later became the Asian American Theater Company) for two one-act plays that he had written.”