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

The San Juan North Secondary School won a slew of awards on November 30 in the Secondary Schools Drama Festival. The school will go on to represent T&T in the Caribbean Schools’ Drama Festival in St. Lucia in 2019.

The production of The Curious Cat won awards for Most Outstanding Production; Costume; Set Design; Choreography; Makeup; Directing, awarded to Anton Brewster and Michailean Taylor; Most Outstanding Male Actor in the Festival, awarded to Daniel Kistow-Davis; Best Supporting Actors, awarded to Uchena Myers and Meshach Hackett; and Most Promising Actors, awarded to Derecia Ali and Troy Joseph. The cast members, most of whom came from the school’s Sixth Form, were Daniel Kistow-Davis, Uchena Mayers, Yusuf-Ann Guzman, Derecia Ali, Jade Apparicio, Daniella Cudjoe, Kasonya Nicholls, Kershel Jackson, Meshach Hackett, Déshor Edwards, Troy Joseph, Jafari Danclair, Anaya Britto-Ford, Akiba de Coteau, Maia Wiltshire and Shaneka Fletcher.
The winning play was written by Alan Prescott and was first adapted for stage by APF Playback Theatre in 2014. It follows the journey of John Scrooge as he ventures into studying the supernatural. The start of this journey leads him to a church where he gets his first warning to leave this study alone. Ignoring the warning, he decides to settle in a shack in a village in Moruga, Trinidad, rented to him by a con-artist who hopes to steal his money and scare him away with pranks. As his quest continues, he believes he comes into contact with unfamiliar happenings (warning number two) and relates them to the old village skeptic, who leads him to the village elder for answers. Instead he receives a third warning to divert from going deeper into this research but of course curiosity propels him further. In the midst of his misery, he meets a young woman who in herself is very mystical but has no tolerance for him digging into things that he shouldn’t (warning number four). However, destined to prove his point “John Scrooge would not behave!” Driven to prove obeah is real, his desperation over powers blinds and drives him to his fate which is laid out just as the saying goes “Curiosity killed the cat”… or does it?
Taylor and Brewster are the Performing Arts Teachers attached to the school. Taylor said they felt as though they had reaped the fruits of their labour. “We are happy, we are content, and we would have been even if we hadn’t placed. Anton and I decided at the beginning of the process to really team up and use all of our strengths to our benefit. He teaches the Form Fours and I currently teach the Form Fives and Sixes, and we merged the three forms together to create this production. The Fours worked backstage, the Fives worked a lot on design stuff and the Sixes were more like the actors and stuff like that, so that was our approach to the whole thing.”
He said everyone worked hard from the beginning of the term “straight up until it was time for the Drama Festival preliminary round as well as the final round. We got support from the school because they knew of our previous victories in drama. We recently started teaching CAPE Performing Arts and were on the regional merit list for Unit Two, with the school placing second, third and fifth in the Caribbean. So since they’ve seen that the students are doing well, they are willing to give us the support.”
Taylor said the students were excited to take part in the Caribbean Secondary Schools’ Drama Festival. “We’re just ready for Caribbean Drama Festival next year, I believe it’s December 7 or 8. I know it’s a long way away, and we might end up with a totally new, vibrant, amped up production but we will be ready to take the crown for the Caribbean Secondary Schools’ Drama Festival as well.”