In­nis Fran­cis

A new fo­rum for stu­dents to ex­plore play­mak­ing through Caribbean cul­tur­al forms is tak­ing cen­tre stage in schools across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The ini­tia­tive, or­gan­ised by the Sec­ondary Schools Dra­ma As­so­ci­a­tion (SS­DA), com­ple­ments the school dra­ma syl­labus, which fo­cus­es on sto­ry­telling, Ku­mi­na and ring games.

Sep­a­rate from the schools’ tra­di­tion­al dra­ma fes­ti­val, the New Play­mak­ing Fes­ti­val 2026 is de­signed to ex­pose stu­dents to cul­tur­al forms in­dige­nous to the Caribbean. In ad­di­tion to Ku­mi­na—a Ja­maican-based cul­tur­al tra­di­tion—the pro­duc­tions will al­so ex­plore themes such as wakes, Car­ni­val, Hosay and Anan­si sto­ries.

The fes­ti­val runs from May 4 to 6, with the fi­nals sched­uled for May 13 and 14 at the Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do.

Pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer and teacher Andy Moti­lal said the ini­tia­tive aims to in­tro­duce stu­dents to cul­tur­al tra­di­tions from the past and help them de­vel­op a deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the art form.

Moti­lal not­ed that the SS­DA op­er­ates sep­a­rate­ly from the na­tion­al schools’ dra­ma fes­ti­val and fo­cus­es specif­i­cal­ly on the­atre root­ed in re­gion­al cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions.

The com­pe­ti­tion will fea­ture a zon­al com­po­nent in­volv­ing schools from Port of Spain/St George East, St George West/Vic­to­ria, Ca­roni/North East­ern, To­ba­go/South East­ern and St Patrick East/St Patrick West.

“These are some of the forms in­clud­ed in the syl­labus, and we are try­ing to in­cul­cate with­in the school com­mu­ni­ty a love for pre­sent­ing the pieces that stu­dents pre­pare for CSEC on a stage,” Moti­lal said.

“Be­cause the syl­labus is so packed, we are us­ing plays that have al­ready been de­vel­oped for ex­ams to give stu­dents a valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to per­form and fur­ther de­vel­op their act­ing skills.”

Moti­lal said stu­dents across the zones have al­ready shown strong in­ter­est in the pro­duc­tions and ex­pressed hope that the pub­lic will sup­port the ini­tia­tive.

Each pro­duc­tion will run for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 min­utes, with em­pha­sis placed on both emo­tion­al ex­pres­sion and cul­tur­al au­then­tic­i­ty.

“We hope that the stu­dents de­vel­op a love for these cul­tur­al forms,” he said. “This will help them strength­en their act­ing skills, while al­so fos­ter­ing a deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the cul­tur­al tra­di­tions of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”