Laff-It-Off Welcomes Six Interns from UWI Culture Faculty

Six students from the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus’ Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts will be working with Laff-it-Off this season, and their lecturer Lisa Cumberbatch couldn’t be more pleased.

Although this is not the first time the production team will have interns working alongside them, this opportunity allows the students to put their lessons into practice after the last two years of a dearth in live theatrical productions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Faculty, Cave Hill’s youngest, is celebrating its second anniversary and Cumberbatch said they “were very excited to engage with” all their local and regional Arts partners “to establish their presence in the university and academic landscape” and the wider eco-system.

“We have had opportunities like this is the past. Our Level Three Students engage in an internship course where they have the opportunity to go and work with various agencies in the Arts across all our disciplines - dance, music, and theatre.

“Specifically, where Theatre is concerned, I am especially pleased to be partnering with Laff-It-Off Productions coming out of COVID. Laff-it-Off for us will be one of the first theatre experiences our students will undertake two years after doing theatre virtually. It is very important for them to have a good, solid experience and what more solid an experience can they have than with Barbados’ longest running, most successful, theatre production.

“Our faculty is unique in the whole university system in that we focus on theory and practice together so for us we really struggled during COVID because a lot of our practical performance work had to be put on hold.

“Considering that a bachelor’s programme is three years in duration and students spent two of those three years with not much practice, you understand our concern. That’s what prompted me, as soon as all the restrictions were lifted, to start to reach out to see what we could do for the students to finish off their education. I was so pleased when Cecily agreed and extended the invitation to our students to come and intern over the season,” said the Theatre Lecturer.

Cumberbatch said it is also “a real pleasure” for them to have their students involved in the production at this time given the fact that she, Deputy Dean of the Faculty Dr. Marcia Burrowes, and Manager of the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination Carla Springer-Hunte were among the cast of Laff-it-Off at various stages.

Cumberbatch shared they were moving to a system which would allow all their Arts students to be fully integrated into their productions and presentations at the Walcottt Warner Theatre.

She added: “Whatever events we host from in the community or within our university system, we’re moving to a place where we can fully integrate our students to work as interns and to gain practical experiences within the theatre production in all areas, much like we hope to do with Laff-it-Off”.

Laff-it-Off’s Artistic Director Cecily Spencer-Cross said the interns have a chance to gain invaluable experience working with the show.

She noted that stage manager Shakera Williams started as an intern as did crew member Akudo Wells.

“Whenever we have productions, one of the things we try to do is develop the entire educational component of the production company. We’ve had a lot of people who’ve done theatre come and intern with us over the years.

“You have to have an interest and a passion for the theatre. I don’t want people who will come sit around, eat food, or run across to Sky Mall. I want people who are excited about being in the production, seeing it work well and know they’ve contributed to that well-oiled production. There’s a kind of excitement when you see things unfold and you are a part of it,” she said.

Spencer-Cross, a former tutor of the Barbados Community College, believes with the COVID restrictions being lifted, there will be opportunities for students studying theatre, creative, and performing arts at the UWI and the Barbados Community College to work along with practitioners.

“There are lots of musical shows, music videos and technical aspects of the arts they can get to work with some of the sound and lighting companies, television production companies and with people offering streaming services,” she said.

The well-known veteran theatre practitioner said if the students worked well, showed interest and a willingness to learn more about their craft, there was a possibility they could be hired by the companies they interned at.