Bethel laments anemic investment in local theatre
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Former Director of Culture Dr Nicolette Bethel rejected suggestions the government was looking to Broadway to develop the local theatre industry as deeply offensive when state investment amounts to roughly four percent of ongoing efforts.
Minister of Tourism and Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper told ZNS on the sidelines of a tourism mission in New York that he was excited by talks with Front Row Productions founder Stephen Byrd and partner Alia Jones-Harvey about bringing a theatre festival to The Bahamas.
His comments come as the 14th season of the international Shakespeare in Paradise (SiP) theatre festival enters the final week of its three-week run in Nassau.
“Either the Minister of Tourism does not know about Shakespeare in Paradise, or the Minister of Tourism thinks that what Shakespeare in Paradise has been doing for the last fourteen years is not good enough for his purposes,” said Bethel, a professor at the University of The Bahamas.
“We Bahamians should all take deep offence.”
Bethel argued that the only difference between plays staged in The Bahamas and the works of Broadway and the West End is the luxury that money can buy.
She furthered the lack of local industry was a direct result of the failure of successive governments to make a “real, or substantial, or sustainable, into Bahamian theatre”.
SiP has presented more than 70 shows to 50,000 people since it opened in 2009, and has hosted some 900 performers across 20 venues, Bethel said.
She noted the festival has spent more than $1.2 million, most of it locally “on food, drink, costumes, transportation, accommodation, t-shirts, set materials, programs, customs duties, freight, VAT, chair rentals, tents, stipends, fees, and other things”.
“Of that, the Ministry of Tourism has provided us with perhaps $50,000,” Bethel said.
“Maybe a 4% investment in what we are doing is commendable—you tell me. But it isn’t building our economy.”
Bethel furthered the combined government grants from the ministries of Culture, Tourism, and Education average $9,000 a year.
She questioned how internships and the use of Bahamian content in Broadway shows would build the local Orange Economy when producers were only looking to benefit their investors.
The tourism minister led a delegation of senior tourism officials to participate in a lineup of meetings in the tri-state area with key stakeholders and media from across the tourism industry last week.
According to a statement, cultural events were also held at The Manor in West Orange, New Jersey as well as The Plaza Hotel in New York City on the evenings of September 28 and 29 respectively.
“We talked a lot about the possibility of a theatre festival in The Bahamas,” Cooper said in a ZNS report on the New York leg.
“We’re excited by this, there is significant opportunity overall. In the film industry we’ve been doing some general work preliminarily looking at film incentives, how we can drive this industry. We have many partners already in the islands of The Bahamas, Tyler Perry in the Exumas for example.”
Cooper said: “We’ve had a lot of preliminary discussions already about building stages and infrastructure. We’ve had some very interesting dialogue about some potential stories for the future, a future of broadway shows with a Bahamian element and Bahamian flavor. I think we can bring some of this to fruition.”
Bethel said SiP was explicitly founded to develop the Bahamian theatre industry, adding its efforts have garnered membership in the international Shakespeare Theatre Association. Bethel will be appointed the association’s president, and its annual conference will be hosted at Atlantis next year.
“We have mounted 33 Bahamian productions, from small one-person performances to full-scale musicals, reviving Bahamian classics and presenting new shows,” she said.
“We’ve established an incubator for new Bahamian plays, directors, and performers which has produced 39 new plays by 25 separate authors and has trained 20 new directors. Shakespeare in Paradise has singlehandedly for the past 14 years provided Bahamians who are interested in theatre with the exposure, training, discipline, and opportunity to engage in their craft at a world-class level.”
After 14 years, Bethel lamented stakeholders are still not working in the creative industry full time due to the lack of financial support.
Bethel said she could not recall if the local festival has ever been featured by the Ministry of Tourism, or if the local industry has ever been promoted.
“And the Minster of Tourism is talking with two New York producers about internships,” Bethel said.
“About brain drain. About tiefing (sic) Bahamian stories to put on their stages to feed the Broadway economy.”
She noted the upcoming ‘Year of Bahamian Theatre’ that will see SiP produce one play each month by a different Bahamian playwright to mark the country’s 50th Independence.
Bethel added: “We do not need the Minister of Tourism to be bringing any theatre festival here. We need the Minister of Tourism to take our festival to the world.”
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