 It's still early days for Dramacan as it prepares for its first major theatrical production for the year. This production has special significance for young director Danielle Dubois as it would be her first time directing a full scripted play that she has written herself. It's a comedy but it's dark, real comedy. It explores the world of heartbreak and it's a case, I wrote the script and it's a case of about five people who are in a centre and the main focus is you have a counsellor but you're discussing the issues and we zone into each of the characters. All five of them are starkly different and have their story but then you have the counsellor who comes in as the voice of reason. For the roles and auditioning you have to decide this is a role that you're taking up and you have to work for it. I'm right! Robert Rene actor. My name is Felayna Murray. Continue to express your feelings. I am Nishon Agasin but people know me as T-Blox. My name is Maeve. I was actually looking at the Doctoral because I think I had quite a nice British accent if you know what I mean. The counsellor is very proper and he has an English accent and he's listening and he doesn't judge and he gives you the perspective that you need to basically move on. I've had a little bit of experience in acting before. I came from Carrie Fester Activity that shoot was what we wore when we first landed in training that it's become my favourite shoot and so I wear it so that I can somewhat channel that energy from all the Carrie Fester spirits. I was actually a little bit intimidated when they were doing their read through because these are people that have been in plays before and you know they're going to Carrie Fester and they're doing their thing and I've never been in a play so I feel a little bit intimidated. Let's clap for him guys. I was actually looking at the Doctoral. I didn't want to audition for Kashpan to see. Kashpan is amazing, it's very colourful, it's very exciting and I love the flavour he brings to it, the patour, with the English and his whole interpretation and he brings his personality into it that makes it so real and I mean I just love that the way he talks, the way he expresses his emotions and you know the funny part is that he didn't understand what women are all about. I mean come on, you're going to take your money Kashpan. When I pick up a role I really try to do it to the best of my ability. One of the things people have accused me of which is kind of true is that I add my own lines in the you know and I try to upstage everybody because you know it's at the end of the day it's an audition they will choose the best so I wanted to really really put out my best foot forward, my own interpretation and the character and it looked like as soon as I was done with Kashpan nobody else wanted to do it and I can't say that I was not happy about that, I was quite content to be honest that everybody sat down. I had to keep quiet and then they just started giving me jokes about my frigid cuts. Not about for your first day, someone wants to tell Dama what her affirmation is. The name of the play is called the Gopuel Rehabilitation Center. Dramacan is not the only theatre group preparing for a production in the months to come. Gemstone Productions led by seasoned director Caden Ford is also in the throes of rehearsals for his original play Gimme a Chance. That's all you care for you know, your image, your false image, image without a shot. I've been doing theatre for the past well almost 40 years plus. Yeah, every music, every music. Well, script writing is really timely because of the way they treat arts in solution. Arts, you know, something people really take serious. Ready? So I was showing the difficulties that artists go through, but there's a love story in the play where this man is a accountant, he has a daughter, but there's symbolism because he represents the system. Okay? Gloria. Gloria. Gloria. Not now. What do you mean not now? You look sooner or later we have to deal with it. And his daughter now is involved like this artist, his actor. And as far as concerned, his daughter should never go and get involved with this fellow. But she's a teacher and she teaches theatre arts. So she wants to move on to show that what she loves. But as far as she's concerned, that they're making more and it has always had time to get involved in that. So I've shown the conflict, both in terms of the love story, the class, the love story and where the system now makes it difficult for people like me and the actors and those people. So the problems that they encounter. Nobody can speak to me any way she feels like I will not stand for this foolishness. Here are ways to reduce your plastic bag use. One, refuse plastic and take your own reusable bags when you shop. Two, reuse your single use plastic bags when you shop until they are no longer fit for the job. Three, repurpose your plastic bags and use them to line your trash can, paint trays and more. Four, dispose of your plastic bags by recycling. Shop wisely and reduce, reuse, repurpose and recycle. Hi, my name is Sidil and you may know some of my hits like this one. Our music inspires and entertains, it powers festivals and is an integral part of our history and culture. Creating good music takes hours of thought, writing, arranging, recording and production. When people or businesses who use our music publicly or for commercial gain get a music license, they're not just keeping the law, they're also supporting music creators, producers, musicians, singers, sound engineers and many others in the music industry. Keep the great music coming, get a music license for your business place or even support music rights. For more information, visit EchoRights.com. This message is brought to you by Echo and this Echo License Station. Echo, Echo, Protecting Music Rights. CDF is both a champion for cultural preservation and development change agent. Established in April 2002 by the CDF Act of 2000, as the agency responsible to align the aspirations of cultural and creative individuals, groups, communities, policy makers and civil society through the implementation of the National Cultural Policy of St. Lucia, we envision a strong united and proud St. Lucia community empowered by culture and creativity. For more information on how you can partner with CDF on some of our projects and efforts, go to CDFStLucia.org. Or contact Cultural Development Foundation Barnard Hill-Castries, PO Box CP5405, call us at 457-9021 or send us a fax at 459-9021. Call us at 457-9021 or send us a fax at 459-0615. Email us at info at CDFStLucia.org. Thank you. Dama, every time I risk in everything to see, I choose you. Me not giving up on us is choosing you, damns. I want to audition for all three roles because I believe you have to get out of your comfort zone a little. I would say Cashman is not really my type of guy because Cashman is a very raggedy person. Cashman is a very, I would say, DNA guy, that kind of thing and that's not that's not me. But I believe that if it is that you want to be successful in life and you have to take chances and you have to do things differently. And I believe that if I do audition and I get three to be a very big thing for me, as that's for the Cashman role. But the other two roles I want to take, I want to audition for, it's Jake and the Doctor Part. You guys started talking about that time. Yeah, tell us, tell us. I want to play in this. I'll be auditioning to play in this because that's the only person that Daniel has asked me to read for. I mean, I've acted before in the States and on Broadway so I have it in a way to the right. Well, I play different roles and I love to learn lines and my personality changes. So I guess that's what they say about German eyes. They're too faced and they have different personalities. Well, at the right time for the right purpose. The Ness has a pretty short part now. So I like the Ness because the Ness is really not there that much. Well, with the character Ness, Joseph, it has a kind of commanding role to it and not only a commanding role. Also, as a Ness, you have the ability to actually talk to your patients and make them understand themselves and calm them. And you also get to even act a bit too faced at times. So I kind of like that about it, I guess. The plays are very serious social commentary. I know some people might feel offended when the plays might touch some loops. I know that too. But you have to see what I have to say. And talk to him? I'd rather go. This house has rules you know what to do. That's your favourite line. I got involved in this production because Mr Hayden Ford and I have worked together. I did the vagina monologues with him. I played three characters in that play. He asked me to join this endeavour and I obliged. I want you to avoid it. Just change the topic please. It's a very different character for me because she's somewhat timid at times and anybody who knows me knows that I'm a very outspoken person. However, she can be bold and I believe that I can relate to that aspect of the character. It's always about me. Why do you always treat me like a child? I'm a baby girl and nobody treats me like a child. I'm still having a bad relationship. Who are you treating them? We share a passion for the arts, myself and the character. And just the pursuit of excellence because I too am pursuing my education just like the character. Theatre has been the goal from my first class in Convent. I was like, yeah, this is good for me. This is what I want to do. Regardless of how you're going to get a job, you think you'll survive. You're not going to get paid any money. You forget you're from St. Lucia. All those things that I hear all the time. It's what I want to do. Even if I have to do something else, make a little money on the side. But theatre has been the goal for probably since I was in Form 3. This play actually talks about theatre and the struggles with the arts. So it's something that I really admire even aside from all the other social issues that it talks about. But specifically the fact that he took the time to mention in this script that theatre is important and young people should be encouraged to do it. That struck me from the beginning so I was like, yeah, I really want to do this. Tony used to be so outgoing, so lively, and all of a sudden all of that changed just because there's one of your break-ups. The character that I'm playing, Alice, is so different to any character that I've ever played in my life. She's very out there and bold and doesn't care what people have to say and does what she wants and he doesn't always tell me I'm too conservative. I have my nice sexy shots on my legs. Showing other shots of all my belly out. Girl, you should have seen the boys eyes pop out of there when they saw me. When I'm playing the role, I am definitely out of my comfort zone with this role but that's good because you don't want to be typecasted. You want to be able to be well-rounded as an actor. These young people now, they don't listen. It's like they just can't listen to what people say and everything. I love drama from secondary school. I was a part of our school drama team. That's the St. Joseph High School in Guyana, of course. And then I just fell in love with the stage. Girl, you turned a big girl. Neither of us can control her. Now you want to blame me. Gloria, Gloria, Gloria. Gloria is in her late 40s but she is silently hurting. And her hurt is mainly for her family because she is seeing her family is being destroyed. It's slipping away and she's trying her best to be the anchor and just hold it together. So you would find sometimes she is leaning on both sides, the husband, Marcus and the daughter, Ruby, not wanting to be biased. There was a minute and he had domestic issues so he said he couldn't continue. So we had to take up somebody playing the next part to put in his role and that had been a problem because we had to start from scratch. The easiest way to pay your Loselect bill is online on any of your secure devices. Go to www.myaccount.loselect.com on your phone, tablet or computer. Have your electricity account number and meter number ready and follow the step-by-step instructions to register and set up my account. Voila! You can review your account and pay your electricity bill online directly to Loselect or through your bank 24-7 anytime, anywhere. When you want to pay your bill, open my account. Click on pay bill on the left of the page. Choose pay my bill by credit or debit card on the right to pay directly to Loselect. Continue to the payment website, complete credit or debit card details and submit payment. Alternatively, if you have online banking and you want to pay through your bank, choose pay through your bank and select your bank from the list. Your bank's login page will open up. Sign in to pay your electricity bill through your bank via online banking. Pay Loselect bills online and get back to your life. CDF is both a champion for cultural preservation and development change agents. Established in April 2002 by the CDF Act of 2000 as the agency responsible to align the aspirations of cultural and creative individuals, groups, communities, policy makers and civil society through the implementation of the National Cultural Policy of St. Lucia we envision a strong, united and proud St. Lucia community empowered by culture and creativity. For more information on how you can partner with CDF on some of our projects and efforts, go to cdfstluxia.org or contact Cultural Development Foundation, Barnard Hill Cathrees, PO Box CP5405, call us at 457-9021 or send us a fax at 459-0615 email us at info at cdfstluxia.org Here are ways to reduce your plastic bag use. 1. Refuse plastic and take your own reusable bags when you shop. 2. Reuse your single-use plastic bags when you shop until they are no longer fit for the job. 3. Repurpose your plastic bags and use them to line your trash can, paint trays and more. 4. Dispose of your plastic bags by recycling, shop wisely and reduce, reuse, repurpose and recycle. The character I was playing is Snatch before I started playing Tony. I'm acting as Tony now and the reason I was selected is because the character, well, the person I was playing Tony, dropped out. When he first told me, well, when he didn't first tell me that I was going to play Tony, I had a lot of self-doubt. I was like, now man, I can't do that. Should I tell him no? Or, you know, or just go with the flow? So I started going with the flow, then, like halfway through the script, I was like, now man, that's too much, I can't do that. Now man, I can't do that. Because Snatch had a little bit of lines and at Carrie Fester, I didn't have that much lines to go through. So getting the lead role now was a bit difficult for me. We have been picking up himself, they haven't come to review ourselves, so in this couple of weeks, we should be ready. Aiden came to us and he was like, guys, listen, do not go over the lines, like go get the lines first, get the character first before you get the lines. So I went home, that sat on my mind for a little while, and I was like, okay, let me go over the lines, get the character, and then learn the lines. And then, yeah, from then on, like after day or two, the lines came to me like that, I was like, wow, that was wow. Yeah. There's one or two people that might be concerned, I am concerned over because of the way they work in. What favour do you have to go through like that? Man, stop with the suspense. I'm a police officer attached to the Marsha station and my schedule at work is very hectic after remaining at the station for 48 hours and under the 72 hours, so that's two days in, two days out. And we have results all through the week and I can only come on days off. So why do you care for this? What are you hiding there, sir? On my days off, I can come in and have my liberty to give my performances, my real self times during that time. I mean, it's very flexible and we always find the best ways that both of us can win. I can come in when it's available for me to come in and he's very understanding and accommodating in that sense. If we continue practicing every day, we should pursue our peak. I know a lot of the performing artists personally and I can definitely say that in St. Lucia, a lot of performing artists are really struggling and it's just a lack of resources. However, they're making the best of what they have. The young children now come from secondary schools in SBAs, they come and interview, they're passionate for the theater, dance, and what happened. So all the idea about creative industries, I don't see it happening in a hurry. There must be other authorities, I suppose, must have facilitated those things for them to happen. She's never been doing the best, but as far as they could go. I just feel like the biggest problem in the art in St. Lucia right now is that we don't have a lot of facilities. We need to train our young people, actually train them and get them certified. And I would love to see a theater school at some point where you can wake up one day and be like, I want to be a performing artist and you can decide that you will go to school in St. Lucia, get your degree in St. Lucia and stay and work in St. Lucia and it's not an outlandish idea where you're like, yeah, but I probably have to pick up four jobs on the side. I have no pride and I do care. Is theater slash performing arts important? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear my cry? Many times we take things for granted and performing arts is one of the ways that has a win-win ending. And I'll tell you why. For the character, the people who are playing the roles, they get a chance to be themselves and yet bring out what probably is hidden and to the audience for those who live in secrets and keep things bundled up. When they see their life being revealed, whether it's true drama, whether it's listening to a song, whether it's looking at a dance, when they see what they're going through, through the eyes of performing arts, it brings them to a realization that I am not alone. And yes, you can hear me. So I may not tell you how I feel and at rehearsals, we may laugh, we may have fun, but some of these lines are so deep that when you're reading, it causes you to do self-evaluation, especially when you tamper with that memory. So theater is very important. Should we continue to do it? Yes, because it's therapy for one soul, both the actor and the audience. It's a need. It's life.