Dear Editor,
It recently came to my attention that comments were made about the 2013 National Drama Festival in an editorial comment by Jairo Rodrigues published in ‘The Scene,’ a Stabroek News Saturday supplement.
It is encouraging that the newspaper took some notice of the theatre and made the National Drama Festival (NDF) the subject of a leader in this weekend publication. The comments touched wide-ranging issues concerning drama and the conduct of the festival, but I focus attention here on just one matter.
It was remarked that the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama would naturally be expected to show off its work and its students in the National Drama Festival, but conspicuously, there was no entry at all by the students, and that this, in Mr Rodrigues’ opinion, was not surprising.
My comment is that if Mr Rodrigues was properly interested in information about this subject, it was not difficult to get. Of relevance, was that this specific information was announced repeatedly before and after performances of entries during the festival.
Graduates of the National School of Drama competed extensively in the NDF. There were five plays entered which were written by members of the Playwriting Class of the school and four of them were directed by graduates of the Directing Class of the school. These were: A Twist of Faith by Taneka Caldeira, directed by Mark Luke-Edwards; Creative Burial Ground by Rae Wiltshire, directed by Nickose Layne; Deep Wound by Mellinda Primo-Solomon, directed by Marissa Primo and Mellinda Primo-Solomon; Duplicity by Keron Bruce, directed by Marissa Primo; Planned to Perfection by Mark Luke-Edwards, directed by Ayanna Waddell.
In addition, all the graduates of the school worked in several other plays as actors, writers, directors, stage managers and in other areas of production. The entries by these graduates dominated the awards in the Junior category, appeared prominently in several awards in the Open category and dominated the awards for directing and playwriting in the Secondary Schools category.
Yours faithfully,
Al Creighton
