SPECIAL GUESTS

It is the tradition of L ’ Acadco to share our stage with talented individuals from across the world of theatre and dance . For our 4 0 th Season , we are privileged to have benefited from the skills and share spiritual bonding with Carolyn Allen , Scriptwriter ; Alwyn Scott , Actor ; Eugene Williams , Dramatic Director ; Marlon D Simms , Choreographer ; Michelle Grant - Murray , choreographer and Tashnie Hinds , Guest Dancer .

Carolyn Allen, a lecturer in West Indian literature and drama, is a lifelong theatre enthusiast She has taught in the Department of Literatures in English at UWI Mona, the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, School of Drama, and was tutor/coordinator of the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI Mona (2002-2008) She serves on the Committee of the Schools' Drama Festival and is a facilitator with Jamaica Youth Theatre. She is also involved in the activities of Erna Brodber’s Blackspace and the Woodside Community Development Action Group

Her performance credits include two Jamaica Musical Theatre Company productions, three Little Theatre Movement pantomimes and over 20 years with the University Singers As a director she works in the field of education at the secondary and tertiary levels, with the secondary Schools Drama Festival, Jamaica Youth Theatre and most recently, Artribute Performing Arts

Alwyn Scott’s odyssey with the stage began at the early age of six with performances at Kingsgate Christian Church During his years at Half Way Tree Primary School, Alwyn excelled in Speech and Drama winning many awards in the local Festival of the Performing Arts Competition. At Jamaica College the young thespian was coached by Dennis Scott winning awards in the National Festival Competition and the Secondary School’s Drama Festival. Under Dennis Scott’s direction Alwyn performed in his first stage play, playing Sir Andrew in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” to critical acclaim Alwyn remembers the elder Scott remarking dramatically to him backstage after an exit: “Scott….. I’m afraid you are an actor ”

It was during Alwyn Scott’s years at JC that he was selected to play a lead role in the BBC film “My Father Son Son Johnson”, performing alongside Lloyd Reckord , an up and coming Oliver Samuels, and Leonie Forbes who was to become one of his few life-long mentors. He was also a founding member of The Children’s Theater Trust (spearheaded by Bob Kerr, Natalie Thompson and Brian Heap) performing lead roles in “Mother Goose”and “Goody”

In high school Alwyn also won an OAS Fellowship to study acting at the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts in Washington DC

After leaving high school Alwyn entered the world of professional theatre. Among his credits are lead roles in “Labour Ward”, “Flatmate”,“Checkers”, The National Pantomime “Mansong”, “What The Butler Saw”, “The King and I”, “Flameheart”, “Hamlet”, “I Marcus Garvey and the Captivity of Babylon”,”Old Story Time”, “The Rope and the Cross”,”The Tempest”, “Bellas Gate Boy”,”Once Upon this Island”,”A Gift for Mom”. He has won four International Theatre Institute(ITI) Actor Boy awards in the category “Best Actor in a Lead Role”, and appeared at the Phillip Sherlock Centre in The University Players’ productions of “Dinner For Eleanor”,“Art”, “Tartuffe”, “Love Letters”, “Two Can Play”, and “God of Carnage” Most recently he played Martin Luther King Jr in “The Mountaintop”

Alwyn was also a member of the University Singers, performing many memorable solo parts He has been inducted in The Caribbean Hall Of Fame for excellence in the Performing Arts

EUGENEF.WILLIAMS-DRAMATICDIRECTOR

Eugene Williams was director of the School of Drama of the Edna Manley College in Jamaica for 17 years He retired in 2016

Williams is a Ford Foundation and Fulbright Scholar with an MFA in Directing (Brooklyn College – CUNY) and an MA in Performance Studies (New York University).

This Guyanese/Jamaican is known in the local and West Indian theatre fraternity for his outstanding work as a Director and Dramaturge. As director his productions include classics such as The Cherry Orchard, Waiting for Godot, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Black Jacobins, Playboy of The West Indies, An Echo in The Bone, Moon on A Rainbow Shawl and Ti Jean and His Brothers.

He has also directed successful Caribbean musicals such as Arawak Gold (Jamaica), Lukume (Toronto) and A Wanna Fall (Trinidad). As Dramaturge he has worked with some of the Caribbean’s foremost playwrights such as Trevor Rhone and Dr Michael Gilkes

His publications include The Anancy Technique – A Gateway to Postcolonial Performance (Caribbean Quarterly Journal Vol. 63, Nos. 2 & 3. Jun. – Sept. 2017); Some Personal Reflections: Trevor Rhone, Griot; Caribbean Writer: The Literary Gem of The Caribbean University of the Virgin Islands, 2010 He has presented lectures on his research and laboratory work on a Caribbean performance technique - The Anancy Technique - at various academic institutions including Rutgers o) and the University of the West Indies (Sir Philip rk in regional theatre: the Silver Musgrave medal in guished work in Drama Education; he was inducted tstanding contribution to Anglo-Caribbean Theatre; 2018 for outstanding achievement in the field of