It’s a tribute to both the universality of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the creativity of the directors that the current School of Drama production of the tragedy – though one the playwright couldn’t have imagined – is a complete success. One...
The manager of Bob Marley and the Wailers had to threaten and actually “get a little rough” with the radio disc jockeys who refused to play his clients’ music in the early 1970s. In fact, it seemed to him that the music of the group, and of other...
It’s not every day you see the Indian high commissioner to Jamaica running down a young woman to douse her with coloured powder. But this happened on Sunday in the India-Jamaica Friendship Garden at Hope Gardens, St Andrew. The laughing “victim” of...
With its splendid set, gorgeous costumes and a story that’s just the right combination of fearful and fun-filled events, JamRats is theatre that most children will enjoy. It closes its two-weekend run on Sunday (March 12) in the Dennis Scott Studio...
Theatre practitioners and lovers of theatre generally got a double dose of delight at the National Gallery of Jamaica on Sunday. The first was visual – 100 beautiful posters from all over the world which were entered in the 2022 International...
A farmer with no experience in storytelling has earned himself the top prize of $375,000 in Jamaica’s most financially attractive storytelling competition. Not only did the second- and third-place winners also walk away with generous cash prizes ($...
Jamaica’s most lucrative storytelling competition climaxes on Sunday with huge wins for the top three contestants. For telling their true-life stories in only six minutes each, they will leave the stage with a combined total of $750,000. Sponsored...
The state of music in our schools engenders both delight and dismay in the music development specialist at the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC). Avory Crooks has reasons to believe both sides of the paradox. On one hand, she can...
“We were performing at Devon House one time,” Renford Foster, leader of the Southwest St Andrew Jonkunoo group said, “and I heard a lady tell her child, ‘Don’t watch dem. Dem is obeah. Dem worship devil. See de devil deh wid him pitchfork...
Training begins today for about 15 new and established Jonkunoo groups around the island, most immediately for a competition next month. To be led by the Institute of Creative Training and Development (ICTD) in consultation with the Jamaica...
Since he began writing and producing plays in 1980, Basil Dawkins has won several Actor Boy Awards for Best New Jamaican Play. He may do so again with his current play, No Hope for Hopie which is being shown at the Little Little Theatre. Spoiler...
Ask Vivian Crawford the simplest question about Jamaica’s culture or heritage and you’ll get a whole lot more information than you would have expected. That’s one of the benefits – or hazards, if one is pressed for time – of chatting with the...
The Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport (MCGES) is calling for proposals from individuals and groups interested in preserving Jamaican culture and heritage. Declaring, “I look forward to us working together,” the minister, Olivia...
Two short plays designed to help students prepare for Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams were so successful when staged in March that they were remounted last month for general audiences. The second staging proved even more...
Opal Palmer Adisa’s promise of “a poetry reading with a difference” was fulfilled with her delivery of The Gift of Words on Thursday afternoon last week. In collaboration with The University of the West Indies, Mona, Department of Literatures in...
Reimagining Nanny was originally a project that, in the words of Minister Olivia Grange, is “aimed at recognising Queen Nanny of the Windward Maroons of Jamaica as far greater than a female warrior and Jamaica’s only national heroine.” As...
For all her adult life, Terri Salmon has believed in the power of the arts. First as a dancer, then as an actress, she entertained audiences in numerous theatre productions for decades. Now, she is helping people more directly as a social worker...
Between 8:15 p.m. on Saturday when the Little Theatre’s stage curtain opened and 10:15 p.m. when it closed, the near-capacity audience was treated to a joy-filled dance show. Yes, there was an intermission between the six dances of the first half...
Yet another call has been made on Government to provide Jamaica with a purpose-built centre for the performing arts. It came on Sunday from a leading theatre practitioner – actor, director, educator and performing arts group leader Fabian Thomas....
The Ntukuma Storytelling Foundation of Jamaica’s annual storytelling week has so far been fun-filled. It culminates on Sunday afternoon in the Island Village complex, Ocho Rios, with more of the eating, drinking and storytelling that has marked the...
One of the highlights of October was the Miss Lou Festival in her Jamaican home community, Gordon Town. It was referred to as the inaugural festival as the organisers, the Louise Bennett Coverley Festival Committee, headed by Opal Palmer Adisa,...
William Shakespeare observes in As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players/They have their exits and their entrances/And one man in his time plays many parts….” For the past couple of decades, when Basil...
Opal Palmer Adisa is one of the busiest people in Jamaica. The titles attached to her name – professor, poet, cultural activist, feminist, and award-winner many times over – indicate some of her activities. They were used last week by a woman who...
Pitchy Patchy, the revue which audiences can enjoy at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts (PSCCA), Mona, for the next three weekends, elevates form over substance. That would be a criticism with most theatrical pieces; not so with...
Submissions for the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize have opened. That was the news greeting thousands of people around the world, including many in Jamaica – interested parties and the writers who have entered, and perhaps been winners in, the...
