While in many parts of the world theatre practitioners can live off their talents, it is not so in Guyana. Our actors and actresses cannot immerse themselves in roles and method act their way to the bank every month. The playwright cannot escape to some remote location for an indefinite period to focus on writing the next best Guyanese play. The director is not arriving in a limousine at the National Cultural Centre or Theatre Guild knowing they would have created a masterpiece and would be adequately rewarded. And the producer is not confident that he or she will make a small fortune off any play invested in.
But why does theatre continue to suffer? Why, when playwrights sometimes spend years working on their plays, is there no assurance that there will be any satisfying rewards from our works?
We write because we are inspired. But it is not that playwrights want to write only because it is our calling; many of us wish that we can make a living off our work. We wish that we can spend our lives developing every idea, but we are Guyanese living in Guyana and must find other professions to survive.