The Winston V. Saunders Repertory Season
Philip on Nov 25 2007 at 2:10 pm | Filed under: General Theatre
On November 25th, 2006, a year ago today, Winston Saunders passed away leaving a major void in many areas of the arts and in the cultural life of The Bahamas. We, the members of Ringplay Productions Ltd., thought that the most fitting tribute we could pay to Winston was to work to re-establish a Theatre Season.
Beginning in January 2008, Ringplay Productions will launch the Winston V. Saunders Repertory Season, which will re-establish a theatre season that will continue to have theatrical productions running throughout the year. While the launch of this Season will initially include Ringplay productions, the ultimate goal is to include other theatrical groups, local and international, to make a complete season, all year round.
As the first offering of this season, Ringplay Productions will present a new Bahamian play, The Children’s Teeth, which was written by Nicolette Bethel and is to be directed by Philip A. Burrows. This production has an anticipated opening in mid January 2008. Auditions for the play will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 29th at #2 Colebrook Lane in the Alicia’s building downtown. Specific character descriptions for the roles being offered as well as directions to the audition site will be posted on both Ringplay’s blog, and on its Discussion Board.
Original productions are not only in the works by Ringplay Productions but other theatre companies like, Scribes Ltd., Track Road Theatre Foundation and Thoughtkatcher Enterprises strive to deliver quality productions to the Bahamian theatre going public. These groups, and others, have been invited to be a part of the Repertory Season.
Although Winston spent most his time working in the Dundas, The Winston V. Saunders Repertory Season will not have one specific home. Productions will be staged wherever there is an appropriate venue. It is the view of Ringplay Productions that theatre is not a building, it’s a movement and we intend to foster those sentiments in the establishment of the Winston V. Saunders Repertory Season.
Ringplay Productions is a Bahamian theatre company, imagined in 1998 and founded in 2001 by members of the former management committee that ran the Dundas Repertory Season for 18 years, from 1981 – 1998, under the chairmanship of Winston Saunders. In the last five years of his life, seeing the decline in dramatic works being offered since the end of the Dundas Repertory Season, Winston spoke often about, and longed to see, the re-establishment of a theatre season. Our plan therefore is to offer not only original works but to revive some of the popular productions that were staged during the Dundas Repertory Season.
While a number of groups, including Ringplay Productions, have mounted shows during the period between 1998 and 2007, an organized theatre season with a full slate of productions and a focused marketing effort has not been established to keep theatre at the forefront of the minds of Bahamians. With the launch of the Winston V. Saunders Repertory Season it is our goal to change that direction.
