-Gerard Gilkes, Nathaya Whauls
FOR HIS role as the titular character in the Harold Bascom drama “Makantali”, 36-year-old science teacher, Gerard Gilkes took home the Best Actor trophy, one of the most coveted prizes of the evening at the Theatre Guild 2011 Awards ceremony last Sunday.
Playing the role of Makantali’s wife, Lillian, in the drama, 22-year-old Accountancy student Nathaya Whauls took home the Best Actress prize.
The play continued its winning streak, capturing the prize for Best Guyanese Play, Best Costumes, Best Production; and finally, the Best Director prize, which went to Malcolm De Freitas, the Director of “Makantali”.

Best Actor,Gerard Gilkes
Being declared Best Actor has not quite sunk in for Gerard as yet. He is, in his own words, “elated and over-the-top excited”. Gerard said he was even surprised to be nominated, considering that he didn’t expect the award to go to such a young person, and he was up against local acting legends the likes of Henry Rodney, Ron Robinson, Godfrey Naughton and Linden ‘Jumbie’ Jones.
He did not neglect to mention that he has always had the support of those actors. He worked on the play “Fences” with Naughton; and his mentors included Henry Rodney and Jennifer Thomas at Carifesta, Margaret Lawrence of Merundoi, and Ron Robinson — last year’s Best Actor award winner. “I was trained by the best”, he boasts.
Gerard is a married father of one. He has been in theatre since 2007, after he did a workshop with the Allied Arts/Ministry of Education for teachers who worked with students for Mashramani. The following year, in Carifesta, students were divided into companies, each of which had to perform an act from a different play. Gerard’s company was working with “Makantali”, giving him his first taste of the play.
Gerard thinks he was selected for the part because he had an insight into the life of the pork-knockers. He has relatives who did pork-knocking and an aunt with a shop ‘in the bush’, and he would go up there during the holidays. He helped out his cast mates by organising a trip to view a pork-knocking exhibition at the museum to see the various pork-knocker exhibits.
He added that a love for Geography inspires him to travel the length and breadth of Guyana, and he is currently in his second year at the University of Guyana, pursuing a degree in Geography. He teaches Biology, Integrated Science and Geography, and those who benefit from his tutoring hail from an impressive variety of schools in the city and its outskirts, the top schools included.
Balancing everything is not easy, and Gerard admits that, some nights, trying to balance his acting with his teaching career, he has to go home after 11:00 pm, and goes to school next day at 7am.  He gives extra lessons to a number of students from various schools.
Gerard said he would like to see more young people getting involved in theatre, and would like theatre to be featured on the curriculum. “It is there in Literature, but how many Literature teachers take the time to act it out [With the students]?  This, Gerard notes, was one of the motivating factors that pushed Naughton to bring the play “Fences” to the schools last year. This year, the group, operating under the label Top Cat Productions, will be bringing “Old Story Time”.
On his students’ reactions, Gerard notes that they are excited about his acting. “My students support me. I tell them I’m on a show and they get tickets”. At first he was embarrassed because he had to act a homosexual role and was afraid of being characterised or stigmatised. He noted that he learned, because his students took it all in stride and loved the character he played. “It’s just an act; when you come off the stage you divorce (yourself from) the character,” he explained. “Guyanese have grown. Before, (if) you see a man in a dress you wouldn’t have taken it too nicely; but now people come up and say how they enjoyed me in that dress.”
On his own personality, Gerard says that the theatre has made him a more confident person, as he previously was introverted. Theatre has helped him to focus less on what people think of him. At first, he would have been ashamed to walk down the street and eat a mango, he explained. Now, he says, “It is a mango, it is to be eaten.” And when he is on stage he feels in control – It is your time to look at him.
Gerard believes that there have been a lot of changes in theatre since Carifesta, as over 200 persons have been trained. He notes that, from since then, people went and started groups, even if it was just in their church.
Makantali was his hardest production, Gerard notes. He praised Director Malcolm De Freitas for sticking it out; Vice Chair of the Theatre Guild Awards Committee, Collette Horatio, and Actress Sharon Taylor, who helped hold the play together.
Gerard’s work has, so far, included parts in Smile Orange, Fences, Nothing to Laugh About, Watch de Ride, Shoes Blues, Hassar Curry, Family Grouse, A Different Kinda Thing, The Vigil, Massacura Man; and he is a street theatre volunteer with Merundoi. He was part of the Guyana contingent to St Kitts during Carifesta, and portrayed a Massacura Man.
He plans to continue in Theatre, but wants to move up to directing and writing, as he really loves writing. “I am on stage, and if I think I am onstage, I would have a better foundation to better direct. I think (actors are) better equipped to direct people, as (they) know what to do.” 
Gerard was given an offer to be in the upcoming Link Show, but he is currently in rehearsal for Two’s a Crowd, which will be taken to Antigua for the Mashramani weekend. “We are keeping the Guyanese over there entertained for the weekend,” he said.

Best Actress, Nathaya Whauls
Nathaya Whauls won the Best Actress prize while dancing, modelling and furthering her studies in Accountancy. She is even more excited to win the prize, as she is the fresh one to be nominated among the “big folks”, such as Sonia Yarde, Jennifer Thomas, Sharon Cadogan-Taylor and Simone Dowding. 
Nathaya is the youngest child of her parents. She has two brothers who are married, and two sisters who, like her, live at home with her mother. Her father is a civil engineer in Kenya.
She stumbled into theatre in 2008 after accompanying a friend to acting lessons offered by the Theatre Guild during Carifesta time. Her inspirations include Actress Jennifer Thomas and Actors Russel Lancaster and Henry Rodney, who encouraged her in the theatre arts.
She thrived therein, and in her first play, she played the role of a man. For Nathaya, being in front of a large audience was never a problem, as she has been dancing on stage for a long time. In her first play, she thought she might have forgotten her lines, but everything went perfectly well.
In short, Nathaya explained, Makantali is based on stories of men leaving their wives to have relations with bush prostitutes, abandoning any connection with the people they left in Georgetown. She described her character, Lillian, as a loving and caring person in her mid-thirties, who is protective of her family, tries to make ends meet, and stops her husband from going into the interior.
Performed in February 2011, Makantali was a hard production for Nathaya and cast mates, taking almost six months of rehearsals. The role was originally supposed to be played by someone else, but after auditions, the girl who was to play Lillian experienced some difficulties and withdrew from the role, thus Nathaya ended up taking the role.
She recalls that preparing for the play was very hard for her and Gerard, because they had the lead roles. They are both friendly with the play’s author on Face Book, and he read the article which Head of the Awards Committee, Al Creighton, wrote in his newspaper column, in which Creighton praised them for bringing life to the play. Nathaya, touched, cried.
What this young actress has learnt is that the theatre calls for discipline. She notes that theatre helps actors to be disciplined in their lives, helping them to be on time, and so on.
She had her struggles too, and says that her mother threatened to put her out for the late hours she was coming home; but she notes that her mom is so proud of her today that she has actually made a special space for the Best Actress trophy, and it is the first thing noticeable when one comes into the house.
Currently, she is studying for a Diploma in Computerized Accountancy, and focusing on dancing. One of her plays, Shoes Blues, is more a dancing and acting play. She noted that Jamaican Actor ‘Jukie’ remarked that her dancing is above her head, but her acting is only at about chin level.  Nathaya took this as a compliment, since she is even more passionate about dancing than acting. She started off dancing Hip Hop, and then moved on to ballets and interpretive dances, because she liked the grace and strength portrayed by that style.
When she is not dancing or acting, Nathaya sleeps, watches television, reads and models. She participated in Guyana Fashion Weekend, and at the time of this interview, she was actually heading off for an assignment at the launch of the Sonia Noel Foundation for Creative Arts (SNFCA).
In the not-too-distant future, Nathaya sees herself as owning her own business; and she has an interest in jewellery and cosmetics. She is focusing on classes now, but if she gets called out to the theatre for another play, Nathaya says, she certainly wouldn’t refuse the offer.
For those interested in acting, Theatre Guild conducts a workshop every Wednesday evening from 19:00 to 21:00 hrs.