Lourds Lane creates ‘SuperYou’ musical to empower women

Singing from the musical… ‘We have a voice, we have a choice.’

Renowned for its musicals, theatre, and artistic performances, New York City has once again added to its multicultural repertoire with “SuperYou the Musical,” which premiered on April 22 at The Players Club in Gramercy Park.

Created by Filipino American Lourds Lane — who was raised by a Filipino mother of modest means — the goal of the musical is to empower women to rediscover their inner superheroes and to use those powers to create the world they envision. With inspirational songs like “Don’t Wait Create,” “I will Start the Fire Now,” and “We are Awake,” the musical is the journey of a female comic book artist, who reignites the superhero in her by encountering her superheroine creations. Huffington Post has described the musical as  “A Broadway-bound game-changer…Finally, there is a happy ending that shows girls how to fall in love with themselves.”

A Harvard honors graduate and classically trained musician, Lourds Lane created “SuperYou the Musical” as an offshoot of her non-profit organization, The SuperYouFUNdation, which she founded in 2013. Putting “fun” in this foundation is the SuperYou Curriculum, which “uses the language of superheroes” to inspire children to make a difference in their communities. This organization has been working with UNESCO to incorporate the program into their global curriculum. 

With Vice Consul Tanya Faye Ramiro (center) and publicist Beatrice Kimmel, who is also FilAm.

Lourds, a two-time TED speaker, introduced herself to audiences as a musically gifted girl who grew up in a small house in Jamaica, Queens “where there was a lot of fighting and screaming.”

“Music created  a perfect world that I could control and where I felt safe,” she said.

At age 3, she began playing classical violin and the piano, she said, and was regularly playing in front of large audiences before she was 7 years old. “Back then since I was a prodigy child it was a totally  big deal to my Filipino mom that the turbulence in my house remains in the house.”

Aside from music, her grandmother had a profound influence on her life.

“My lola was my very best friend. She would watch me practice (playing instruments) for hours and I would watch her crochet a blanket she was making especially for me,” she said at TED Talks. “Two things made me completely safe: music and my lola.”

According to her website, Lourds had the distinct honor of being the opening and closing speaker/performer at the inaugural Forbes Women’s Summit in 2013 where she galvanized Fortune 500 women executives to become a stand for service and community.

“Lourds is thrilled to be writing the official musical anthem, as well as be invited onto the advisory board of The Aurora Games, the inaugural all-female Olympics in 2019.”  Also on the advisory board are sports icons, Olympiads, and Hall of Famers, including Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Nancy Kerrigan, Nadia Comaneci, Bart Conner, Donna de Varona, Shannon Miller, Martin Damus, and Chrissie Evert.  

© The FilAm 2019



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