Role: Phillip
Credited as: Pedro Balmaceda
Theater: International City Theatre, Long Beach, California
Dates: July 30 – September 5, 1999
Playwright: Lyle Kessler
Director: Elina deSantos
In the summer of 1999, Pedro Pascal, then performing professionally as Pedro Balmaceda, starred as Phillip in Lyle Kessler’s Orphans at International City Theatre in Long Beach, California.
The three-person production featured Joshua Hutchinson as Treat, Phillip’s older brother, and Barry Lynch as Harold, the mysterious stranger whose arrival changes both brothers’ lives.
Phillip has spent years virtually shut away inside the brothers’ Philadelphia row house, frightened of the outside world and completely dependent on Treat. He passes his time watching old movies, imagining Errol Flynn upstairs and hiding among his late mother’s clothes. When Treat brings Harold home intending to hold him for ransom, Harold instead becomes something neither brother expected: a father figure.
For Phillip especially, Harold’s attention begins opening up a world he has never been allowed to experience.
Pedro’s performance became one of the earliest major critical successes of his professional stage career, earning extraordinary reviews and eventually a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Lead Performance.
Orphans
Archival Photos
Production photographs from the 1999 International City Theatre production of Orphans.
Archival production photos courtesy of International City Theatre, generously shared directly with StainsofPascal.
Awards & Recognition
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award — Lead Performance
Pedro Balmaceda received the Lead Performance award for his portrayal of Phillip in Orphans.
The award is listed in the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s official historical records, and contemporary reporting from the 2000 awards ceremony also names Pedro among that year’s Lead Performance recipients.
Garland Award
Pedro’s later professional theater biographies credit his performance in Orphans with earning him both the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and a Garland Award for Lead Performance.
Reviews
Back Stage West — Orphans
Reviewer Polly Warfield singled Pedro out in her review of the production, describing him as a newcomer and calling his performance as Phillip a “revelatory delight.”
She also described him as “astonishing, breathtaking, totally endearing” and wrote that Phillip’s transformation under Harold’s affection was “wondrous to behold.”
The review referred to Orphans as Pedro’s West Coast debut. Since Pedro had already performed on California stages as a teenager, including at Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre, this appears to refer to the beginning of his professional West Coast stage career.
Los Angeles Times — August 12, 1999
“Inspired Staging, Performances Raise Brilliance of ‘Orphans’”
The Los Angeles Times praised the entire three-person cast, describing Pedro Balmaceda, Joshua Hutchinson and Barry Lynch as delivering “some of the finest performances in memory.”
The review highlighted the strength of the ensemble and the emotional transformation at the center of Phillip’s story.
OC Weekly — “Hold the Mayo” — August 12, 1999
This review praised Pedro’s comic instincts and the intelligence he brought to Phillip as the character began to emerge from his isolation.
It also describes an opening sequence in which Phillip reenacts a dramatic death scene from a television movie, throwing himself around the stage. The critic noted that the unusual staging worked largely because Pedro made it so funny.
And the title becomes even better knowing what Pedro’s understudy Steven Martini remembered years later: Pedro’s Phillip ate mayonnaise straight from the jar with his hands.
More Recognition & Coverage
OC Weekly — “The 1999 Okies!”
In its year-end nominations, OC Weekly recognized the cast of Orphans for Ensemble Acting, describing the performances as “simply mesmerizing.”
OC Weekly — “The 1999 Okies” — February 2000
When the winners were announced, Orphans was named Best Production of 1999.
Although International City Theatre was in Long Beach rather than Orange County, the publication decided the production was simply too good to leave out. Pedro Balmaceda, Joshua Hutchinson and Barry Lynch were praised as an “electrifying” three-person cast.
Back Stage West — Breakout Talent
Only weeks after Orphans completed its run, the September 30, 1999 issue of Back Stage West listed:
Breakout Talent: Pedro Balmaceda
It is a wonderful little snapshot of this point in Pedro’s career: an actor just beginning his professional stage work already earning remarkable reviews, awards and recognition as someone to watch.
Fun Fact: While Pedro Was Filming Buffy…
Pedro had to miss opening weekend of Orphans after landing the role of Eddie in “The Freshman,” the Season 4 premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
That left his understudy, actor Steven Martini, with a pretty enormous job.
Martini later shared that he had just three days to learn around 80 pages of dialogue so Pedro could leave Long Beach to film Buffy.
His method for learning it all? He played the piano and sang his lines to help memorize them.
He also studied some very specific Pedro character work, including the way Pedro’s Phillip ate mayonnaise straight from the jar with his hands.
Martini later joked:
“I was literally the reason he could do this.”
He described performing the opening weekend as one of the greatest experiences he had ever had performing live.
Pedro returned to Orphans and would ultimately receive the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Lead Performance for playing Phillip.
Source: Steven Martini, Pedro’s understudy in the 1999 production of Orphans.