The history of the likes of Bahamian icons Paul Meeres, Joseph Spence, Blind Blake, Freddie Munnings Sr., John 'Peanuts' Taylor, John 'Chippie' Chipman, George Symonette, Eloise Lewis and Maureen Duvalier, The BBC Singers and Tingem Dem Band will come to life on stage at The Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts as Cultural Legacy presents 'Culture 101: 1900s-1960s'.
The stage play by producer Maude Lockhart aims to remember the icons for what they did in the arts, and will be held in honor of Kermit 'KC' Strachan, the former lead singer for The Dicey Doh Singers.
'Culture 101: 1900s-1960s' is the history of our Bahamian icons and what they did on the international scene," said Lockhart.
The play will have a twist from the norm and will showcase lots of flashbacks.
"When I did the research, I thought that it would be a nice history lesson where we have a young girl who goes to The College of The Bahamas and has to do a paper on Bahamian culture, she has a list of names, and not a clue who they are. She goes to her grandmother and says 'Grannie I have a paper to do, I don't know these people, and the information was boring,' so Granny sits her down with her uncle, and a friend comes by and they start to discus all of these different people."
The first scene opens to a talk on the history of Paul Meeres -- how he started, where he went and what happened. After the first scene, the lights go down on the actors, and up comes a gentleman who dances -- he's Paul Meeres, they talk about what he used to do. The lights go up again and the young girls says 'oh Grannie this is so exciting, and they start talking about Joseph Spence. And it goes back and forth.
"One section is a stage play, the other side is like a flashback with people talking history. In times gone by you sat around the table and talked about what happened," said Lockhart.
The entire stage play utilizes four actors -- Patricia Bazard (Grannie), who actually went to church with Joseph Spence as a little girl, and as a result, brings a lot to the production; Ronald Simms (Uncle) who also has a lot to bring because he's involved in the music and entertainment field; Ryan Albury (Asha, the college student) and Claudette 'Cookie' Allen (Suzie), and as the queen of culture, she has a lot of information to give.
Lockhart who said she came across tons of information when she did her research said the audience will definitely appreciate it when they see it come across on stage.
"I was guided to do it in stages from the 1900s and go straight up to now, because there are so many musicians in The Bahamas that have really made it, and some that started and didn't make it, but life happens. But Bahamians need to know that we have talented people here in The Bahamas, and we need to appreciate each other," she said.
"I want them to know that The Bahamas has a wealth of talent, and I think what we really need to focus on is trying to appreciate our own people, regardless to whether they made it successfully for awhile, and then may have fallen from grace so to speak. We still have to acknowledge that the person had talent enough to make it. It's just that life happened or choices were made. But we have that talent. We need to cultivate it and realize that we really have talented people. We have young people we want to encourage them by putting this on and draw them towards the arts, to let them know in the history that they can make it."
The one-and-a-half hour show will feature Freddie Munnings Jr. who will portray his father Freddie Munnings Sr., The Dicey Doh Singers will portray The BBC Singers, 'Peanuts' Taylor will play himself, John 'Chippie' Chipman will play himself, Anita Ellis will portray Eloise Lewis, Chaise Miller will portray Paul Meeres. The stage play is directed by Marcel Sherman.
"It will offer a lot of information that a lot of us didn't know, and I think that the audience is going to appreciate it," said Lockhart. "And my whole thing was my friend Kermit 'KC' Strachan who this is in honor of, who was very active in music and drama. He's had a stroke and unable to move or sing and I said we needed to do something. When we went to Edmond Moxey's memorial and they started to speak about Joseph Spence, I'd never heard about Joseph Spence and said there had been so much that I hadn't heard about, and I'm sure a lot of young kids in school had not heard, and it would be nice to do something historical for the audience."
After Culture 101, which is Lockhart's first play, the producer said she expects to do Culture 102 until she comes up to the present time.
"Anyone who was born in the 1900s down to the children in school should plan to attend. It's a history lesson for everybody."
The gala performance and reception for 'Culture 101: 1900s-1960s' will be held tonight at 8 p.m. Tickets are $75. The second performance takes place on Saturday, March 21 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25, adults, $10 students under 12.
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