Playwright inspires - Writer turns to plays to bring hope to the hopeless

Hasani Walters, Gleaner Writer

Out of the passion to write a book, a play was created. From there, as they say, the rest is history.

Almarie Taylor, originally from the United States but now based in Jamaica, has a drive for the performing arts. Her work in that field, however, is mainly behind the scenes, as she does not hit the stage doing dramatics, but instead, writes the scripts delivered by actors.

Taylor, who is also a Christian, writes plays centred mainly around humanitarian topics.

Her genesis in the field of writing plays can be described as a 'destined accident', as she always dreamed of writing, but not necessarily of being a playwright.

"I started writing in the United States. I've always wanted to write a book, and when I finally decided to write the book, it just turned into a play instead of a book," said Taylor.

The reception of her first play, Choose You This Day, was overwhelming.

That play, she said, ran for about a year in the United States. It was performed in the tri-state area of New York, as well as in Virginia.

Taylor said the play was a success, pointing to favourable viewer response. Its first showing pulled over 400 persons out to watch.

From the beginning, charity was her main priority as Choose Ye This Day was used many a time as a fund-raising activity, as well as to minister to people.

Divine inspiration

According to the playwright, her inspiration to write plays comes from one main source, God.

"That's the bottomline. He's all the inspiration I need to write. He just gives me the drive to write about various things that happen in people's lives on a daily basis. It isn't just spiritual issues that I address in the plays; some other topics, such as HIV, abuse and history are also looked on," she said.

To Kenya With Love, another play which was done in 2008, was for a group of Kenyan children whose parents had all died from AIDS.

"That play was for the children of a school in Kenya. All their parents had died from AIDS. What we did is that the money we raised from the show, we used it to build two dorms. We built a boys' dorm and a girls' dorm for the children," shared Taylor.

She is still working on Males Secret - Breaking The Cycle, which she said deals with a lot of misinterpreted male issues in society.

"With that particular play, we interviewed males from all diffe-rent age groups and backgrounds, asking them questions and getting their views on some of the topics that we were looking on in the play," she said.

With the encouragement that she gets from her husband, Edwin Taylor, friends, family and viewers of her plays, she does not intend to stop writing anytime soon.

"We've been told that we should be on Broadway," she laughed. "We've even been described as a little Tyler Perry."

"What we try to do is look at life and let people realise that there is still hope. Some people lose their dreams and our plays encourage them to never give up." she said.

Taylor founded Rolyata Productions, and her main support system, her husband, Edwin, plays the role of vice-president in the company.

Her recent production, Yet Will I Trust, which has been performed at various locations in St Catherine, is set to be run in Kingston in coming weeks.