Romeo Candido: How a viral video inspired the musical Prison Dancer

Q | Dec 1, 2023
Back in 2007, a video featuring 1,500 inmates in a Filipino prison dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was uploaded to YouTube, quickly becoming one of the internet’s first viral videos. The footage inspired a new Filipino-Canadian musical called “Prison Dancer,” created by Romeo Candido and Carmen De Jesus. Guest host Talia Schlanger speaks to Romeo about the production, and travelling to the Philippines to meet the real dancing inmates.

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