Three nights out for a worthy cause

This weekend the Jamaica Association of Dramatic Artists (JADA) will mount a novel two-in-one suite of plays which will mark the start of the group's efforts to raise funds toward establishing the Theatre Artistes Benevolent Fund.

That fund, according to a release from the group, will help members of the theatre community who are in need of urgent assistance in meeting pressing health and other expenses.

The premium theatre experience of two one-act plays - written, directed and performed by some of Jamaica's best talents - will be on for four shows only at Centrestage theatre, New Kingston.

The first of these two plays will be Amba Chevannes' two-hander Ms Burton Gets a Promotion.

The piece premiered at the Kingston on the Edge [KOTE] theatre night recently and stars the multi-talented Rishille Bellamy-Peliece in the title role of the indomitable Ms Burton. Theatre critic and occasional actor, Keiran King, will cap his pen and venture on stage as the second actor in this play.

Ms Burton Gets a Promotion is directed by two-time Actor Boy Award Best Actress winner, director and producer, Nadean Rawlings.

World premiere

The second featured play will be the world premiere of Basil Dawkins' Josephine's Night Out - a play in one act for one actor.

The talent for this production is Christine Ann Bell - a multi award winning actress who has taken home three Best Actress in a Lead Role Actor Boy Awards for Louise Marriott's Office Chase; Lenford Salmon's State of Emergency - Salmon's Jamaican adaptation of the famous Chilean play Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman - and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.

Also much loved for her interpretation of the role of Rose Madden - which she played for several years in the TV series Royal Palm Estate - Christine Ann Bell was last seen in the lead role of the mother in Basil Dawkins' A Gift for Mom.

Bell who credits famed writer and director, Dennis Scott, as the greatest influence on her approach to acting - returns to the stage after an eight-year absence, specifically to aid what she views, a worthy cause.

For this, her first one-woman performance, she is being ably guided by the direction of Eugene Williams, a critically-acclaimed theatre director and principal of the School of Drama at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts.

According to Scarlett Beharie, the JADA member who is co-ordinating the production, "This rare theatrical offering marks the launch of a concerted effort, which will involve the mounting of at least one annual fundraiser, as well as an outreach to corporate Jamaica, toward ensuring that the Theatre Artistes Benevolent Fund will be able to grow and to achieve, in a very meaningful way, the purpose for which it is being established."

The inaugural fundraiser, which will run from this Friday, October 1 to Sunday, October 3, is a voluntary effort.

Show times are Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., while Sunday's closing gala performance will be at 6 p.m.