Carnage was a theme of two excellent productions last weekend.It is much-talked-about, but not actually present, in the Yasmina Reza comedy of manners (without the manners) God of Carnage, directed by Brian Heap for the University Players....
After just over a year, my amazement at the small numbers of theatre practitioners I see at the Palace Amusement Company's fairly regular screenings of London's National Theatre Live (NTL) productions has diminished to mere surprise.National Theatre...
He was not exaggerating about Ana Strachan, guitarist Seretse Small, tenor Rory Baugh, and instrumental group Touch of Elegance. Poet Joan Andrea Hutchinson, though primarily compere of the show, did double duty as a performer. In addition to...
"A calm evening of exciting jazz" just about sums up the experience of a hundred or so people on Devon House east lawn last Thursday. It was International Jazz Day and, once again, the Edna Manley College (EMC) of the Visual and Performing Arts,...
Dr Brian Heap has been taking some very effective shots at what he calls "the elephant in the room".He used the phrase while speaking recently at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston, to an audience comprising mainly high-school students and...
Over the weekend, the two-year old Philharmonic Orchestra of Jamaica (POJ) took another step towards its ambitious goal of becoming "the premier symphony orchestra in the Caribbean". It mounted its 2015 Spring Concert Season (on Saturday and Sunday...
Seventeen schools across the island are now rehearsing nine of Shakespeare's plays in abridged, Jamaicanised versions the playwright could not have possibly imagined. The productions have been entered in a competition which will see the winner...
Published:Tuesday | April 21, 2015 | 11:25 AMMichael Reckord
Last week Sunday, a medium-size audience grabbed the opportunity provided by Palace Amusement Company to see - on screen at Palace Cineplex, Sovereign Centre - a play which is now running at London's Royal National Theatre.Written by one of the UK's...
Published:Wednesday | April 15, 2015 | 12:00 AMMichael Reckord
Many internationally acclaimed theatre practitioners from Jamaica started out in Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) competitions. Basil Dawkins, as well as the late Trevor Rhone and Dennis Scott, spring to mind.During a recent JCDC...
Published:Thursday | April 9, 2015 | 12:00 AMMichael Reckord
Even before the start of The Jamaica Film Festival from July 7-11 in Kingston, new Jamaican screenplays and contemporary writers, directors and producers - the 'content creators' - are getting international exposure. Jampro's Film Commissioner Carole...
Edna Manley College School of Music lecturer June Lawson is laying claim to one of the most revered periods on the Christian calendar, Good Friday afternoons, as her show time. So last Friday, at the University Chapel, Mona, she introduced the...
"I couldn't find my glasses," Jean Small said.She was explaining to The Sunday Gleaner, an extra-long, between-scenes wait that the audience had during her one-woman show, The Awful Truth, at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts (PSCCA)...
Published:Tuesday | March 24, 2015 | 12:00 AMMichael Reckord
Though written some 2,500 years ago, Oedipus the King, by the Greek playwright, Sophocles, is arguably the greatest tragedy ever written. It is certainly one of the world's best plays. A good production leaves its audience both emotionally drained...
Published:Wednesday | March 18, 2015 | 12:50 PMMichael Reckord
Michael Holgate and David Tulloch are among the versatile practitioners of Jamaica's performing arts. Among many other things, they write, produce, direct and act in plays.They authored and directed productions now running in theatres on adjoining...
One of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka's most popular plays, the comedy The Lion and The Jewel, is having a run - until today - at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts (PSCCA), Mona. The presentation by the University Dramatic Arts Society (...
Published:Thursday | March 12, 2015 | 7:42 AMMichael Reckord
What a packed week it was up to Sunday! Apart from the regular entertainment events - movies, plays, night-clubbing - last week saw the convergence of a couple of annual events with an established bi-annual one, plus a visit by an internationally...
Published:Wednesday | March 11, 2015 | 12:24 PMMichael Reckord
In the pre-Independence era before Jamaican and Caribbean authors started pushing foreign ones off school curricula, adventure stories from the UK were about as popular as the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels of America. The books of Scottish author...
Published:Tuesday | March 10, 2015 | 11:23 AMMichael Reckord
Clearly, the Southern Chorale loves Jamaica. For the second time in four years, the 60-plus-strong choir, from the University of Southern Mississippi College of Arts and Letters and School of Music, is singing here.Conductor Dr Gregory Fuller told...
Published:Thursday | February 26, 2015 | 11:50 AMMichael Reckord
Some call it 'Sin City'. The PR people call it 'the entertainment capital of the world'. The first description is due to its tolerance for all kinds of adult entertainment, the second because it's probably true...
Published:Thursday | February 19, 2015 | 12:14 PMMichael Reckord
Today, I discuss the functions of drama and the concomitant question "why do we go to the theatre?"I was nudged toward the issue by playwright-producer Barbara Gloudon, whose comments on a column of mine were published in The Gleaner of February 6....
Published:Thursday | February 12, 2015 | 4:26 AMMichael Reckord
The late Trevor Rhone was generally recognised as Jamaica's best playwright.Having been associated with Jamaican theatre for more than several capacities for over 50 years, my current top three are Patrick Brown, Basil Dawkins and Dahlia Harris.The...
Published:Monday | February 9, 2015 | 12:00 AMMichael Reckord
The recent Love in the Afternoon event, staged at the Alhambra Inn, Tucker Avenue, St Andrew, was the second in the Jamaica Musical Theatre Company's (JMTC) 2014 - 2015 In Concert series.....
Published:Thursday | February 5, 2015 | 12:02 PMMichael Reckord
As Jamaica Musical Theatre Company (JMTC) chairman Doug Bennett has pointed out, 2015 is turning out to be one of the most productive years in the company’s "long history".
