Quite apart from becoming a superstar in Thailand thanks to a lot of canny promotion, Bie flung himself into efforts to get the musical version of a beloved Siamese tale on Broadway.

He tells Hamburger there were a lot of sacrifices early in his career, back when he was still drawing taunts for his unpolished singing style. Hard work and practice turned that around, though, and he soon had millions of fans. Bie says he’s most proud of the fact that he’s been able to support his family and buy a nice house for his parents.

The greatest challenge – and the greatest joy – has been trying to get the musical “Waterfall” onto the Great White Way in New York, the world capital of song and dance. Bie’s boss, Takonkiet Viravan, has spent years (and plenty of money, surely) guiding and shaping the production as it makes its way slowly towards Broadway.

Unfortunately Hamburger is unable to offer any real news about the show’s progress. Like any play aiming for Broadway, “Waterfall” – which is based on the classic romance novel “Khang Lung Phab” – has had test runs elsewhere in the US, notably in Pasadena and Seattle on the West Coast.

Takonkiet, co-producing the show with a proven Broadway outfit, naturally wanted Bie to take the role of Nopporn, as he’d done on Thai stages already. Bie says he refused at first, fearing his talents weren’t up to international standards, but over the course of a year so many people urged him to accept the role that he finally accepted.

Life on the road wasn’t much fun, he says. On his own in New York City, he was homesick to the point of tears and worn out by the constant, difficult rehearsals, which stretched his abilities with the English language as well as singing and acting. He also struggled to adapt to the tougher work ethic.

“Being criticised by members of the team was one of the worst moments of my career. Everyone was speaking English all the time, so I didn’t always understand everything. When I came in for criticism, it hurt – a lot, because it was very true.”

With no indication whether “Waterfall” is getting any closer to Broadway, Bie is back home concentrating on other projects. He wonders if being overseas so long has undercut his popularity here but, knowing he’s done his best to help Takonkiet fulfil a dream, he’s confident his boss won’t let him down at this stage of his career.

Now 30, Bie knows he’s no longer the youthful pop idol he once was, and he’s adjusted his working style accordingly. Never one to rest on his laurels, he’s still honing acting and dancing skills and looking for sustainable ways to replace the pop star with an entertainer for all seasons and all stages.

With Manny Pacquiao (probably) retired from boxing, Filipinos are in need of someone else to brag about, and on Sunday they got one in the form of Clint Ramos, dressmaker to the stars.

The New Yorkbased designer of stage sets and costumes won the Tony Award for the latter skill as applied to “Eclipsed”, a hit Broadway play starring Lupita Nyong’o, who won an Oscar for getting beaten up in “12 Years a Slave”.

In fact the play has an allwoman cast and crew (including playwright Danai Gurira and director Liesl Tommy), as Ramos acknowledged in his acceptance speech. “I just want to say thank you to everybody, to a group of women who are unbelievable,” he’s quoted as saying in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Ramos had earlier said on Instagram that being nominated validated his work. It meant, he said, “that design dealing with contemporary themes is worthy of rewarding, that powerful, modern costumes are just as complex as the pretty period ones”.

For the show about five women enduring the second Liberian civil war, Ramos combined traditional African fabrics like lapa, woven cotton with colourful patterns, and Tshirts emblazoned with American popculture images (Nyong’o wears the Rugrats).

He studied photographs of the war and found shirts and fabrics in shops selling vintage clothing and African merchandise. All the outfits were treated with dyes to mimic sweat or bloodstains that wouldn’t wash off when the costumes were laundered.

Born and raised in Cebu, Ramos took up theatre arts at the University of the Philippines, doing design work for Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas. He got a master’s degree in stage and film design at New York University’s Tisch School on a full scholarship.

He has since designed costumes and sets for more than 100 productions around the world, most recently for “Frozen: Live at the Hyperion”, a musical based on Disney’s animated movie that’s one of the attractions at Disney California Adventure Park but will be tackling Broadway in 2018.

He also did the clothes (and rags) for the Broadway production of “The Elephant Man” featuring Bradley Cooper, and “Here Lies Love”, a musical about Imelda Marcos to be staged in San Francisco next year.

Ramos is assembling quite the trophy case, having won, among many others, a 2013 Obie Award and a National Commission for Culture and the Arts gong and Lucille Lortel Award in 2014. Now he’s got the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre.

Actually the Tony Awards have seen several Filipinos earn honours. Lea Salonga was best actress in 1991 for her star turn in “Miss Saigon”. Investing producer Jhett Tolentino has Tonys for the 2014 revival of “A Raisin in the Sun”, “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” (Best Musical that year) and “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” (Best Play 2013).

And composer Robert Lopez, who’s of Filipino descent at least, claimed the prize for Best Original Score in 2004 with “Avenue Q”.