An attractive young woman stopped me as I was exiting the theatre last Friday night. But it was only to give her opinion of the production we’d just seen. “I liked it,” she said. “It was different. Very educational.” She couldn’t have been more...
“What do you think of the new NDTC?” The question came from another patron on Friday night during the opening concert of the National Dance Theatre Company’s 2025 Season of Dance at The Little Theatre on Tom Redcam Drive. My answer was noncommittal...
Some of the 600 or so audience members piling into the Little Theatre at dawn on Easter morning doubtlessly thought of missing their regular church service later in the day with the excuse they had already worshipped. Some pastors might’ve even...
“Thou shalt not” is a phrase that Pastor Holiness utters often throughout the course of the play of the same name, which is currently showing at Green Gables Theatre, Cargill Avenue. The pastor uses it to warn his congregation against doing many...
Tastefully written and touchingly acted, Sugar Dumplin is a short Jamaican film about a sensitive subject, dementia. It deserves to win an award or two at some of the film festivals its producers are aiming for. Having premièred the film at the Pan...
Following a charity concert dubbed Beyond Boundaries held at the UWI, Mona, chapel in May last year, four New York-based musicians with a philanthropic bent returned to the island to mount Beyond Boundaries ll at the same venue on Saturday evening...
The four young musicians from New York City who form the Renaissance String Quartet made a huge impact when they came to Jamaica last year May for a charity concert called Beyond Boundaries. They’re back, with the intention of giving even more....
The implementation of the long-held plans of two Jamaican musicians for Caribbean classical music took a big step forward last weekend. Franklin E. Halliburton, musical director and conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Jamaica (POJ), and...
Rodari Simpson is a fan of Caribbean musicians, one of no doubt millions around the world. He says, “I have always felt that Caribbean musicians and composers come with a special vibrance of sound that has not been given the platform it needs,”...
Halfway through its celebration of its 31st Anniversary, the Stella Maris Dance Ensemble (SMDE) presented The Vow, a dance about a love triangle involving a man and two women. Choreographed by Renee McDonald, the work has a twist in the tale that...
Pitchy Patchy, an explosion of colourful, stylish, dance, drama and music, is back for its third annual run. Hearing the news, hundreds of fans arrived at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, on Sunday for the revue’s gala opening. Created by...
The creative fiction that started life in 1925 as Porgy, a novel by DuBose Heyward, has undergone at least a dozen professional iterations, the most popular being a first-of-its-kind black opera, Porgy...
The 2024 dance programme of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) offers audiences mainly joyful items. Having opened at its accustomed venue, the Little Theatre, on July 19, the season closes on August 11. Fans have two weekends to enjoy...
“It was good. I enjoyed it.” That assessment and explanation of it came from a woman in the seat behind me as we prepared to leave the Courtleigh Auditorium on Sunday evening. Judging from the enthusiastic applause and cheers that were just dying...
A 15-minute video which seeks to preserve the memory of Ring Ding, Jamaica’s first television programme made specifically for children, was launched last Friday afternoon. Clap Yuself The Ring Ding Documentary was shown to a small audience of...
For about two hours, and to the delight of the audience, poems of all shapes, sizes and themes poured into the amphitheatre of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA), along Arthur Wint Drive, last Tuesday evening. The...
There was so much to see at the weekend concert by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Jamaica (POJ) that you could have enjoyed it even if you were deaf. I refer not only to the beauty of the venue, the grounds of The University of the West Indies, Mona...
The St Mary Literary Festival had its successful inaugural staging at the Port Maria Anglican Church hall two Saturdays ago. Doubtlessly, the team organising it breathed a collective sigh of relief as, after months of hard work, which started last...
“Today we celebrate and properly recognise someone who embodies excellence,” was the proxy declaration of Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia Grange on Sunday. She was referring to Mervyn Morris, a man whose exemplary...
The energy hits you in the face and ears like blasts from a furnace. It starts with the shouted, albeit cheery, greeting from the black leather-clad deejay (Kiana Jackson). She goes on far too long, nearly 15 minutes. At least that’s how it was on...
“This award is wonderful ... marvellous,” veteran actor Oliver Samuels said as he received the Red Stripe Living Legend Award from the company’s brand manager, Nathan Nelms, on Friday night. The event took place at the Little Theatre, Tom Redcam...
The question-filled audience at the Temple of Light Centre for Spiritual Living on Fairway Avenue, St Andrew, last week Sunday heard about both the frustrations and the joys of trying to write and publish books. The process was ultimately “very...
Having nearly $1 million in prize money, the What’s Your Story Jamaica? storytelling competition is easily the island’s richest of its kind, and now in its third year, it’s becoming more popular. This positive news was given to the audience at this...
Theatre is bouncing back big time after the trials and tribulations of Covid. A couple of years ago, stages were dark, but this past weekend drama aficionados were able to see no less than six productions in the Corporate Area. Five of them...
