From The Desk of the Executive Producer

Boy, time surely flies!

It seems like just a few years ago, but it was actually a very warm night in September 1985 that I received a call from the Director of Culture, Elombe Mottley, inviting me to meet with Thom Cross, Tony Thompson and Guy Goring. The five of us met as arranged and at the end of that first meeting Community Theatre Productions was born and it was agreed that Thom, Tony, Guy and I would be the new theatre company’s Trustees.

We staged our first production in November that same year with a cast of six – Tony Thompson, Wendell Smith, John Walcott, Sade Leon-Slinger, Winston Farell and Hal Archer (on flute) opening the week before Independence Day. Our home base in those early years was the Queens Park Theatre, later renamed in honour of the renown local thespian and educator Daphne Joseph-Hackett.

On March 18, 1993, Laff-it-Off Productions Inc. was established to manage the productions and business affairs of Laff-it-Off. Thom Cross and I were the initial directors of the company. Our goal at the time was to extend the reach of Laff-it-Off locally and internationally and we believed that an incorporated entity was more suited to achieve this.

It was not long before our audiences outgrew the Daphne Joseph-Hackett Theatre and we had a few years of being a nomad company moving from venue to venue in search of adequate seating and facilities before settling down at the Ann Johnson Auditorium of the St. Gabriel’s School. It was at that venue that some of our more epic productions were staged.

From early days, Thom insisted that we had to portray a high standard of professionalism on stage while my self-imposed mandate was to always ensure that the business side of our operations were managed at the highest possible standard. Perhaps the fact that we have survived for forty (40) years is an indication that we have been successful in that regard. Another goal that was established from our early days was to recruit fresh young talent to provide them with “on-the-job” training - whether on stage, backstage or in the technical areas of production. The best manifestation of our efforts to achieve this was when the cast, production team, crew and technical staff were joined onstage at intermission of one of our shows by one hundred and five (105) individuals who had worked in Laff-it-Off productions in various roles over the previous thirty (30) years.

Cecily Spencer-Cross succeeded Thom as a Director of Laff-it-Off Productions Inc. in May 1997 and, with me, has overseen the success of the company since then.

So, it is with a sense of great pride that we look back over the last forty (40) years and the many unforgettable hilarious moments on stage, the joy that we brought to audiences in Barbados, the Caribbean, USA, Canada and the UK, and our contribution to the training of the many theatre arts students at secondary schools, the Barbados Community College and the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.

We thank our two political parties for being a never-ending source of satire which has, in no small measure, contributed to Laff-it-Off’s longevity. The gift that keeps on giving! And we thank you, our audience, for your love and support over the past forty (40) years and look forward to entertaining you for many more years to come.

Thank you!

Ian