Julia Serad, Naya Ambi, and Iya Villanueva talk about playing Rachel and Asenath, women who know Joseph at very different points in his life.
Joseph makes the mistake of telling his brothers about a dream in which they bow to him. They already have plenty of reason to resent him. He’s their father Jacob’s favorite, and he has the coat to prove it. His brothers sell him into slavery and use the coat to convince Jacob that Joseph is dead.
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Joseph ends up in Egypt, where he’s falsely accused and sent to prison. His gift for interpreting dreams eventually gets him in front of Pharaoh, who’s had a pair of dreams he can’t make sense of. Joseph tells him Egypt has seven good years ahead, followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh puts him in charge of storing grain. By the time his brothers come to Egypt looking for food, Joseph is the man they have to ask for help. They don’t recognize him. He knows exactly who they are.
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Trumpets has been telling that story onstage since the ’90s, with Audie Gemora, Gary Valenciano, and Sam Concepcion among the actors who have played Joseph. For the November 2026 run at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium in RCBC Plaza, Jordan Andrews and Neo Rivera alternate in the title role, Nonie Buencamino plays Jacob, and Bernice Aspillaga directs.
Meet the women in Joseph’s story
There are two women to listen for if you’re coming to the show for the first time. Rachel is Joseph’s mother. She knows him before any of this happens, and she’s the one who asks him to trust God when she’s still working out how to do that herself. Asenath enters his life in Egypt and becomes his wife. She’s also the one who turns to the audience and tells us what happened.
The POST sat down with three of the women in the cast to hear how they play those parts. Julia Serad, who played Rachel in the 2025 revival and went on to appear in Shrek the Musical, returns to sing “He Opens A Window.” Naya Ambi returns as Asenath, a character who caught her attention when she was still a fan in the audience. She shares the role with Iya Villanueva, whose stage credits include The Bodyguard.
We know what happens to Joseph. But how does his story look to the women who live through it with him? We asked Serad, Ambi, and Villanueva what they see in Rachel and Asenath and how they bring those perspectives to the stage.
Julia Serad on the advice Rachel needs to hear, too
Serad knows Rachel will die giving birth to Benjamin. When Rachel is with Joseph, though, she has every reason to assume she’ll be around to watch him grow up. “Knowing Rachel’s fate made me approach every scene with Joey with more tenderness and intention,” Serad says. “What makes it even more heartbreaking is that she herself doesn’t know that her time is limited or that she won’t be there to watch both Benjamin and Joseph grow up.”
Serad also thought about the years Rachel spent hoping for a child with Jacob while watching other women bear his children. That loneliness changes how Serad hears a line of reassurance. “I try to show that when she reminds Joseph to trust and believe that everything happens for a reason, she is also trying to hold on to those same words herself.”
To get a sense of who Rachel is outside those scenes with Joseph, Serad looked to women in her own life. “I draw from the way they express love, the sacrifices they make, and how they carry their own struggles while still showing up for the people they care about,” she says. “I want Rachel to feel like a woman with her own hopes, frustrations, and imperfections.”
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Naya Ambi first heard Asenath as a fan
Ambi was 11 when she first saw Joseph the Dreamer. The music stuck with her, and when she heard the songs again at a 2023 Easter concert in BGC, she found herself paying attention to Kayla Rivera as Asenath. “The riffs and the way she told the story just amazed me,” Ambi recalls.
Genesis tells us that Asenath is the daughter of an Egyptian priest, that she marries Joseph, and that they have two sons. Ambi had plenty of room to imagine who she might be. “I imagined Asenath as a woman of integrity and command,” she says. “Coming from the solid traditions and beliefs of Egyptians, she became open to Joseph’s belief.”
For Ambi, getting to tell the story is part of what makes the role personal. “To be an actor is to be a storyteller,” she says. “That choice changed my life, the fact that I’m doing what I love and make it a living at the same time is a blessing.”
Then she watched Villanueva play the part. “Watching Iya, I realized Asenath can be playful too.” It made her wonder what Asenath might have been like growing up, and how much room she had to explore and be adventurous.
Iya Villanueva on telling a story Asenath knows by heart
Villanueva started with the script. “Since Asenath is the storyteller, I really had to study and make sure I understood every word,” she tells The POST. She plays Asenath as someone who believes from the moment she meets Joseph that God put her in his life and that someday she’ll tell his story.
Villanueva also relates to Joseph when he starts to wonder whether God is still with him. “This resonates to me the most because there are times where I will feel completely lost in life because of circumstances out of my control.”
For Villanueva, the hardest part to sing comes when Jacob finally sees the son he thought was dead. “There’s a moment where the father and son reunite, and that’s challenging for me because the scene is so emotional and I need to balance getting swept into it while also maintaining my vocals because it’s the most vocally challenging song for Asenath.”
Watching Ambi gave Villanueva another way to think about the woman telling the story. “The biggest thing I discovered was that perhaps this is not the first time Asenath has told this story, which makes her so confident and comfortable with her words.”
Whether it’s your first time seeing Joseph the Dreamer or you’re coming back for another round, you can catch the musical through November 22, 2026, at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza. Buy tickets on Ticket2Me
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