KEN’S CHOICE #25 - 29 Jan.08
The Caribbean Cultural Theatre is the most imaginative and productive cultural organization that I know of in the New York Caribbean artistic community.
Even a casual look at their website program list will show their regional outlook – Trinidadian Freddie Kissoon’s comedies, Kamau Braithwaite’s poetry performances, playwright Godfrey Sealy’s (Trinidad) award winning play ONE OF OUR SONS IS MISSING, one of the original dub or riddim poets Jamaican Linton Kwesi Johnson, Edward (E.R) Braithwaite’s of TO SIR WITH LOVE, Barbadian playwright/novelist Glenville Lovell, and of course, the late great Louise Bennett (Miss Lou).
Their immediate program is of TREVOR RHONE, another outstanding Jamaican playwright whose works have been widely produced throughout the Caribbean and it’s global diaspora.

Trevor graduated as a dramatist from the Rose Bruford College for Speech and Drama (England) in the early 1960’s, just one year before I began my three-year course there. We’ve taken different roads in our theatre lives – he became “the playwright” and I “the performer”.

…and now here he is in New York as “the performer”, while I’m in the throes of trying to write a book – an autobiography in my storytelling mode.
It’s been 16 years since I’ve seen Trevor at a sit down on a Portofspain curb interview during Carnival that I did with him for the CARIBBEAN EYE television series produced by the Trinidad Banyan Studios.

Friday, February 1 @ 8pm . York College Performing Arts Center, Jamaica, NY. 718-262-3750
Sunday, February 3 @ 6pm . St Francis College. 180 Remsen St. (Clinton & Court Sts), Brooklyn, NY. 718-783-8345
Friday, February 8 @ 7:30pm. Rockland Community College, Rockland, NY. 845-354-5369
Wednesday, February 13 @ 7pm St. John’s University, Queens, NY. 718-990-1924
Reservation/Information - Caribbean Cultural Theatre 718-783-8345
Online Ticketing - theatermania.com 212-352-3101

The return of playwright/filmmaker Trevor Rhone to the New York area to tell the story of a life time! The internationally acclaimed writer of the films One Love, Smile Orange; The Harder They Come, shows himself to be a master storyteller in this hilarious and touching tale of a boy from rural Jamaican who grew up to be one of the Caribbean’s most celebrated dramatists.

The recipient of the Commander of the Order of Distinction from the government of Jamaica, Rhone’s work, in his own words, seeks “to mirror the lives of the ordinary man, and to reaffirm his strengths in such a way that he learns to diminish his weakness and to believe that he can make a positive difference in his society.” His screenwriting credits include the 1988 Toronto Film Festival Genie Award winning Milk and Honey, and 2003’s Cannes Film Festival favorite One Love, a stirring love story staring Ky-mani Marley, son of the late reggae legend Bob Marley.

KEN’S CHOICES is a fortnightly (more or less) one-pager tidbits of arts/cultural events and people that I think are interesting but don’t get the media attention they deserve.
Ken is in Long Island, NY. (631)744 3127. kcorsbie@optonline.net www.kencorsbie.com