Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

If you’ve been to Queen’s Hall in the last 20 years, more than likely you’ve seen a lighting design made by lighting designer and technician Knolly Whiskey.

Whiskey has been at Queen’s Hall for the last 38 years, beginning as an assistant electrician and retiring as Senior Lighting Technician this June.

He began his career working on the Savannah stage in 1975, when his father sent him to work with the foreman there, Ralph “Socks” Coker, when he expressed an interest in electricity. After blowing up a fuse in a dramatic initial encounter with the element, Whiskey went to trade school and graduated with distinction.
In 1979, he took up an offer to work at Queen’s Hall made by the then head electrician, Carlton Joseph, and began work immediately. It was here that he was introduced to the beauty of lighting design by master lighting designer George Williams. His first experience creating a lighting design on his own was for The Love Movement in 1984. “Mr. Williams took a backseat because we had a new lighting console and he was very old-school, so he told me to go ahead. I lit that show and it was so exciting, it pushed me to do many other productions. I used to get butterflies in the beginning but now I realize that even if a lamp blows or a cue doesn’t run when it’s supposed to, the audience doesn’t know any different.”
Whiskey said he worked his way up through the ranks at Queen’s Hall through the years, lighting Best Village performances, Music Festival performances, operas and others. “I lived through six or seven Government changes and managers and board changes while I was here and it was very exciting. What I look at is the transition, what has happened since I came here in 1979 and those changes and the development of Queen’s Hall, I was so proud to be part of that.”
After about a decade and a half working at Queen’s Hall, Whiskey attempted to study with theatre practitioner Benny Gomes at Northern Illinois University but could not get permission from the Board since he was employed as an electrician and not a lighting designer. When Gomes was hired at UTT and moved back to T&T, he called Whiskey and told him “Knolly, I am here, you don’t have to go anywhere, the University is offering the same course.” Whiskey entered UTT in 2010 and did a four-year degree, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in the Performing Arts with specialisation in Theatre Design and Production. “When I approached Queen’s Hall board, the General Manager said I was granted no-pay leave for the four years, which didn’t make sense, so we came to an agreement that I would still be on the job, just do my classes and come back and so for the full four years, it was just work and schoolwork and I graduated Magna Cum Laude.” In 2015, he did a Master of Arts in Carnival Studies with Dr. Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool, graduating in 2016.
Whiskey is known as the Bird, because he is unafraid of climbing to the heights needed to be an electrician in the theatre. His passion for his work and for lighting design, which he describes as a labour of love because it is unpaid, show through in his demeanour. He has won three Cacique Awards for Most Outstanding Lighting Design, in 1999 for Tony Hall’s Red House Fire! Fire!, 2005 for The 3Canal Show, Jack in the Box and 2006 for The 3Canal Bacchanal Show.
Whiskey said he has also found the time to have a life outside of Queen’s Hall. He loves swimming, dancing and going to the beach with his wife and three grown children. “I make this boast, I’m sure I took my children to almost every single part of T&T, even though I was so busy at Queen’s Hall.”
Now that he has retired, Whiskey said he wants to pass his knowledge on to the next generation, as there is a lack of people who want to be electricians and/or lighting designers. “I think it’s a lack of the drive and people like myself to drill it into the youth to look at the theatre as an option because you can earn money. For the last six years, I’ve been saying I want to go back and teach, whether UWI, UTT or some school or even if I open my own and get the authorization and whatever to just impart what I learned over the years.”