THROUGH her Purple Arts Production company, Director/Producer Simone Dowding is putting on the seventh edition of ‘A Treat for My Mother’ on Sunday, May 12, at the National Cultural Centre (NCC) on Homestretch Avenue in Georgetown.

Dowding, with well over 30 years of experience in theatre business in Guyana, makes sure to point out that her show is not to be confused with the ‘Mother and Daughter Pageant’.

“It’s a musical variety with Jazz, oldies music from the 50s 60s, 70s. It’s sung by Herbie Marshall, Antwon Gonsalves, Paul Budnah, Sheron Cadogan, Barbara Lee, Ronald Greene, Bonny Alves and Charmaine Blackman, and others,” Dowding shared with Buzz this week.

Charmaine Blackman, she pointed out, has been with the show from the beginning. “We held on to Charmaine because she’s a Guyanese icon. They (Alves and Blackman) always support us. Charmaine doesn’t get the respect she deserves in this country but we hold on to her and as long as we can, Charmaine will be on our programme,” Dowding expressed.

She continued that the show usually caters to a mature audience “to take you down memory lane when you were courting and had your first kiss and all those things. I cater to women in their 70s and late 60s and men too; the irony in it is last year, a man won the Mother’s Day cake.”

This year, a Jazz segment will be in place with Damian Layne, a lecturer at the University of Guyana, and Mikel Andrews will be doing an Amerindian dance.
The fashion segment will be done by a boutique called CaMeg’s Fashion House. “Usually I would give young Guyanese designers the springboard to showcase their pieces. Next year, though, we are going back to our young designers.”

Door prizes will be given out, along with prizes for the best dressed mothers in purple. The first ‘Best Dressed’ mother in purple will walk away with a pair of gold earrings from L. Seepersaud Maraj and Sons, and the second best dressed, also with a pair of gold earrings but from Sunflower Jewellery.
Dowding graduated from the Burrowes School of Arts and other institutions, ending up with a total of 13 certificates. She’s also won Theatre Guild’s ‘Best Actress’ award in 2012 for the play ‘Old Story Times’ and she works primarily with children through her production house.

In addition to the popular ‘Link Show’, Dowding has worked on ‘House of Pressure,’ ‘Miriamy,’ ‘Eleventh Finger,’ and ‘Jezebel,’ to name a few.