The Bahamas’ “Shakespeare in Paradise” has just announced its 2nd annual theatre festival to be held in Nassau, October 1 – October 11, 2010.
The following are the eight productions for this year’s festival:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is their signature Shakespeare production, to be performed by students from the College of The Bahamas and the Festival Director, Nicolette Bethel. The work has been specially imagined for a Bahamian landscape. Patti-Anne Ali, out of Trinidad and New York, co-director of last year’s The Tempest, will return as director.
Woman Take Two makes its first public stage appearance since 1995. Written by Telcine Turner Rolle in the 1970′s, the play examines the darker side of Bahamian society.
Bahamian-American author James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones will not only feature the Junior Choir from St Francis Church, under the direction of Francis Richardson, but will also have a very talented group of actors — and some serving pastors — preaching the sermons. The festival’s artistic director, Philip A Burrows, will direct.
One Flesh (An evening of two one act plays) – Come Back to Me, by Jesse Cameron Alick, is a one-act play about religion, secrets and communication in the Caribbean-American family. Featuring the work of director Donya K Washington and hip-hop composer Belief, it follows an important day in the life of three siblings, Ryokan, Isis and Jude, and tracks the conversations that they have with one another over the telephone, contrasting them with actual events in the characters’ life.
Joining Come Back to Me to round out this evening is another one-act piece called Manikato by Phillip Peters, also directed by Washington. This work takes the Song of Solomon, reinterprets it, and presents it from a West Indian point of view.
Dat Bahamian Ting, by Bahamian-born writer/director Robin Belfield, introduces us to a young Methodist Minister from England who travels to The Bahamas for work and falls for a young Bahamian church member.
Horn of Plenty features Indio, who was a part of New York’s Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group. “When comedian Aladdin reaches a crossroads in his career he discovers the journey of his father who left Bangladesh in the 1940′s to pursue his American Dream in Spanish Harlem.
The World is my Home – The Life of Paul Robeson is a critically acclaimed one-man play written and performed by Jamaican born Stogie Kenyatta.
Other events that will take place during the festival will include a play reading series held at Chapter One Bookstore, and the appearance of Derek Burrows, internationally renowned Bahamian storyteller, who will visit primary schools to perform for hundreds of students.
The festival will have an official opening on Friday, October 1 with a performance of Woman Take Two.
The full schedule of all productions is posted at http://ringplay.org/wordpress/ along with ticket pricing information. Bookings can be made online and/or by telephone with special discount ticket sales that will continue until September 25. The Box Office will open on September 20 at The Dundas. Tickets will remain on sale until October 11, the closing day of the festival.
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