National School of Theatre Arts and Drama returns to public stage with The Performance 13

We already commented on the way the public theatre seems fairly well settled in its return to life after the recent lock-down. What is now announcing itself is a return to normalcy in the corridors of learning. Activities in the halls of the national drama school, for instance, have been showing tentative signs of re-emerging from the cocoon of on-line tuition into which it had retreated. But it is now stepping out onto the public stage.

The National School of Theatre Arts and Drama (NSTAD), one of the four Schools of the Institute of Creative Arts (ICA), a few months ago invited the public to an exhibition of theatrical and SFX make-up designed and applied by students being trained by the tutor Steve Douglas, the acclaimed designer of Bravo Arts. That was the first bold open event by NSTAD after its two-year hibernation when interested persons could see what drama students were learning at the institution about special effects and character make-up for the stage and the screen. The work being done in the studio and with models was shown on stage at the National Cultural Centre (NCC).

After opening that tentative window the theatre school stepped out even further when its Acting class journeyed out to hold workshops in the town of Linden. This was quite an important outreach since not only was it open to drama groups in Region 10, but it marked the return of extra-mural activity that NSTAD had attempted in previous years. Regional residents with little access to the drama school joined the students in acting workshops conducted by the instructor Godfrey Naughton.

Further to that, at the tail-end of a prolonged period of on-line classes, the annual Summer Workshops for the Teaching of Drama were able to once again bring students in for lectures and studio work in the face-to-face mode in the NSTAD lecture rooms and the NCC stage. This is a training programme specially designed for teachers which the drama school runs in association with the Ministry of Education’s Unit of Allied Arts. Teachers are mobilised from various far away districts for tutoring so that they may be better equipped to teach drama in their schools. One group of these graduated last year with the Technical Diploma in the Teaching of Drama.

This year the teachers were able to return to the stage for studio work, led by Tutors Ayanna Waddell, Esther Hamer and Sonia Yarde. Furthermore, they ended a programme of study in Caribbean Cultural Forms and units in Technical Theatre with a performance on stage. This exhibited the dramatisation of the forms Wake, Storytelling and Stick Fighting. These workshops advanced the cause of assisting teachers in becoming more competent to teach drama in secondary school, but more specifically, to meet the requirements of the CSEC subject Theatre Arts. What is more, there will be an opportunity to show those to the public in “The Performance 13” of 2022.

Most of the foregoing helped to advance the efforts of NSTAD to be more effective nationally. Many potential students have not been able to access the courses offered at the theatre school because of its Georgetown location, but through those activities and programmes, many were able to, at least in part, overcome that barrier. Besides, forms of outreach will always go a long way in attracting more interested persons to receive training in performance. Apart from virtually signalling the end of inhibiting pandemic restrictions, that is one of the reasons why the announcement by the performance school about the new production “The Performance 13” is so welcomed and important.

Following all those incremental advancements in public and face-to-face events, the NSTAD recently broadcast that the student production titled The Performance 13: House of Emotions will be performed on Friday October 7 at 8.00pm at the NCC. This is a return to the public stage by the institution for the first time since 2019.

This production resumes the annual showing of work by the theatre students that has been a tradition since the school began. As part fulfillment of the requirements of their programme all students must participate in a public performance for which they are graded by their lecturers. The production draws on most of the various disciplines that they study and the work they have covered is supposed to allow them to make contributions to the performance. They get an opportunity to show and put into practice what they have learnt. Furthermore, the public gets the opportunity to see the exhibition of those skills.

As a test of their acquired competence, practical work is put into action by students in various disciplines. These include the courses done in Production Management, Costume Design, Make-Up, Properties, Stage Management, Set Design, Acting, and Dance. But in addition, students have been pursuing other courses that have also led to the creation of material that will be exhibited. These are the Introduction to Film, Animation, as well as designs in costuming and make-up done on models. Yet, it goes further, because there are students studying Creative Writing and some of their work will be on display as well through the readings of poetry and prose.

These final year productions are designed by the students and will show work that they have generated and presented with the help of skills they have learnt. This year the Performance 13 is sub-titled House of Emotions because of the theme on which it hangs. There are short plays and dramatisations whose plots are driven by a variety of human emotions which have caused dramatic conflicts and consequences acted out on stage.

There are three short plays, each with its own central conflict but related to the thematic interplay of emotions. They are “Obsession”, “Bittersweet” and “A Daughter’s Love”. These dramas were developed in class arising from exercises and the focus on emotions, so that these human feelings drive the conflicts and the actions of the characters who respond to them. They then serve as very interesting dramatisations which form the centre of the production. Many of the other items on the programme relate in one way or the other to the main themes.

There are songs and poems. The poems are selected from works written by students in the Creative Writing Poetry classes going back over at least three years. They are dramatically performed to give them added power. To enforce that there is a short story and dances. The dances strengthen the themes and are choreographed around the conflicting emotions. In particular, the play “Bittersweet” has dance as a part of its performance text.

There are students studying Animation and Film, and the products of this are also brought into the programme. There are separate presentations by the film students and an exhibition of the work produced by the students of animation. It is a very rich mix of presentations because the programme also includes exhibitions of work done in the Module of Set Design. The exhibitions continue with samples of costume design and videos of the actual studio work, while the results of make-up character studies are displayed by models.

What thus becomes obvious is that there are several different disciplines studied by the students, many of which complement each other. But most of them create spectacle in creative work worth looking at.

The students then put into practice their competence in production management as well as several elements of technical theatre. Then in performance their skills are tested in the performing disciplines acting and dance. The Performance 13: House of Emotions is guided by the Production Manager Francwa Fortune, who is, himself, one of the students. Curtain time is 8.00 pm on October 7 at the NCC; there is no charge for admission.