CULTURE Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony has said that with the recently established National Theatre Art School it is expected that there will be enhanced participation in the country’s National Drama Festival.

He made this assertion during a recent interview with the state media when he pointed out that the school, which operates from the National Cultural Centre (NCC), currently has about 26 students enrolled.
According to Dr. Anthony, the school offers a basic course and an intermediate course, both of which run for a year, and the latter one is for persons who would have had experience in the area of drama, and therefore wouldn’t need to go through the basic course.
The National Theatre Art School was launched in January this year, and will accredit students with a diploma after two years of tutoring.
Students in the first year are required to take all the courses offered, after which they will be awarded a certificate.
During the second year, they will select a major and minor, and they will earn a diploma which allows them at another level to secure an associate’s degree in theatre arts.
Dr. Anthony had said, at the launch of the school, that it was felt that having a dance school, a music school and no theatre was something that had to be corrected; hence a drama school was created.
“The school will help persons with their performances and look at the technical side of theatre because we want to utilise the facilities here at the (National) Cultural Centre to do lighting on stage and stage management and sounds and special courses to deal with designs, wardrobe and so on to enhance what we are doing,” he had said.
Courses offered are acting, voice, movement, English Language and Literature, lights, sounds, directing and the history of theatre, script writing, and costume and creativeness, makeup for theatre, business of theatre, introduction to theatre and set designs and stage craft and management.
The first theatre in Guyana was opened in 1810, and one of the first productions was done on February 24, 1810.