The Nature Island Literary Festival and Book Fair is now in its 7th year, and organizers are promising a new, exciting and extended event in 2014.
This year the festival will focus on theatre and will also observe the 450th anniversary of the birth of world famous writer, William Shakespeare.
The festival runs from August 7 to 17. It will include a week of workshops from August 8 to 10 and films from August 11 to 17.
This will be followed by a performance of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” by the Globe Theatre Touring Company of London at the Arawak House of Culture on September 6.
Addressing the festival’s launch on Monday, Chairman Dr. Alwin Bully said it is bearing fruits.
“We have been seeing the fruits of the early labor already, not only in Dominica but in the rest of the Caribbean,” he said, noting that the festival has developed “quite a reputation already.”
He said the event has been lengthened becasuse “we are finding out that we can’t fit everything that we would like to have in three days.”
Program highlights will include full-length performances of classic Caribbean plays while established playwrights, screen writers, directors and actors from the Caribbean and beyond will make presentations on their work on stage and screen.
Six iconic Caribbean playwrights will also be honored as part of the festival. They are: Louise “Miss Lou” Bennet of Jamaica, Errol Hill of Trinidad and Tobago, Trevor Rhone of Jamaica, Errol John of Trinidad and Tobago, Derek Walcott of St. Lucia and Earl Lovelace of Trinidad and Tobago.
There will be full length plays including “The Ruler” by Alwin Bully of Dominica, Lady of Parha by David Edgecombe of Montserrat and the USVI, “This World Spin One Way,” by Dobrene O’Marde of Anguilla and “Sizwe Banzi is Dead” an Anguillan production.
Patrons are expected to entrance fees at all of the acts.
The event is being held under the theme “The play’s the thing.”
“It will be memorable,” Bully noted.
Looking forward to it.
I can’t wait!
It sounds exciting with all these plays. Congrats to Alwin Bully and his team. Keep on going. Dominicans, support this worthwhile event. It can be developed as a signature event for the island, attracting people from across the world. Private sector and embassies, I urge you to support through sponsorship the Nature Island Literary Festival and Book Fair.