Playwrights of The Week
Playwrights of The Week
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Derek Walcott Response on Custos
The poem “The Star-Apple Kingdom” starts with this pastoral painting. How do you get from that to the Caribbean? From paint to words. Is that a fair transition? Are you asking too much of your readers that way? First of all tell me about custos. Derek Walcott replied saying “custos is an example of the things that happen in language in the Caribbean. A custos is a custodian. A Latin custos—custodoes meaning a god. It’s an old Jamaican word which may still be used for someone in charge of a parish, appointed by the government, I think. The custos of a parish is the guard.
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Stanley French Playwright of the Week
Stanley French, one of the Caribbean’s leading playwrights has died. Born in 1937 in Castries, Saint Lucia, he attended the Methodist Primary School and St. Mary’s College, following which he moved to London where he completed the Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering at the University of London in 1962. In London, during the 1960’s, he was exposed to international literature, theatre and cinema, both modern and traditional. London was then a Caribbean intellectual hub nurturing writers and students grappling with issues of Caribbean self-determination and development. The city was a vibrant centre with many professional and “fringe” theatres, cinemas, bookshops and associated facilities. French’s attraction to theatre began…
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Kendel Hippolyte Accomplishments Across the Carribbean
Kendel Hippolyte has participated in poetry workshops by Derek Walcott famous playwright and poet. Both playwrights has been featured on MA’s Playhouse blog honoring their contribution to the Caribbean and Caribbean american society. He has himself designed and taught poetry workshops in various places such as Ty Newydd in Wales and the UWI Caribbean Writers Summer Workshop in Barbados. He has performed his work in the Caribbean, Europe and America at events such as the Miami International Book Fair, the Medellin Poetry Festival, Calabash Literary Festival, Vibrations Caraibes, the Havana Book Fair among others. In 2007, he won the Bridget Jones Travel Award to travel to England to present his…
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Kendel Hippolyte Playwright of the Week
Kendel Hippolyte is a St. Lucian poet, playwright, and director. Recently retired from academic work, his present focus is to use his skills as a writer and dramatist to raise public awareness and contribute to active solutions of critical social issues. As a poet, his writing ranges across the continuum of language from Standard English to the varieties of Caribbean English, and he has also written poems in Kweyol, his nation language. He has published five books of poetry and authored eight plays. In 2000, he was awarded the St. Lucia Medal of Merit (Gold) for Contribution to the Arts. His most recent book, Fault Lines, was the winner of the…
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Edgar White Playwright of the week
EDGAR NKOSI WHITEBy Dr Alda TerraccianoEdgar Nkosi White was born in the Caribbean island of Montserrat on 4 April 1947 and brought to the United States in 1952, living in Spanish/English speaking Harlem, New York. He was educated at Yale University and New York Theological Seminary where he respectively completed his studies in Drama and Theology. At the age of eighteen his first play, The Mummer’s Play (1965) was produced by Joseph Papp Public Theatre in New York. According to the publication the success of this production, which revealed his talent as a playwright, convinced the producer to stage his next four plays, including The Crucificado a drama set within…
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Barbara Gloudon Playwright of the Week
Jamaican born Barbara Gloudon is a journalist, playwright, writer, and the first female chair of the Jamaican Council Institute for the Arts. Gloudon has worked extensively with Jamaica’s Little Movement Theatre Company (LTM) has written an extensive number of pantomimes for them. Her pantomime The Pirate Princess first staged in Jamaica in 1981 was later produced by Temba Theatre Company for the 1986 Black Theatre Season. Productions Production Date Theatre Anansi Come Back 1995 Hackney Empire Theatre The Pirate Princess 1986 Arts Theatre Sourced at National Theatre Plays Archive.