Frus­tra­tion. That's how per­form­ing arts stu­dents ap­ply­ing for gov­ern­ment help to study abroad de­scribe their feel­ing when they're told that they can't get fund­ing. They feel it's shame­ful that even though peo­ple with the skills they want to ac­quire are need­ed in the arts sec­tor, an in­vest­ment is not be­ing made in peo­ple who want to come back and build up T&T.

They ask: if young peo­ple don't feel that their coun­try val­ues them enough to in­vest in them, will they come back?There is a wealth of un­tapped tal­ent in T&T, as ev­i­denced by young peo­ple be­ing cho­sen for ex­cep­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties abroad by schools fa­mous for their qual­i­ty.

One such young per­son is Raguel Gabriel, who was cho­sen, out of 800 ap­pli­cants from across the world, as one of 15 to at­tend a three-year con­ser­va­to­ry pro­gramme at the pres­ti­gious Stel­la Adler Stu­dio of Act­ing in New York City. On Gabriel's au­di­tion, pres­i­dent and artis­tic di­rec­tor Tom Op­pen­heim wrote: "It was a great plea­sure see­ing you au­di­tion. The com­pe­ti­tion was in­tense. We very much en­joyed your work and sense of pas­sion for act­ing, the­ater and life."

Hav­ing been ac­cept­ed, Gabriel now has to raise funds for tu­ition and oth­er ex­pens­es. Tu­ition amounts to US$7,500 a se­mes­ter, of which there are six in his ex­pect­ed course of study. He said while there will be op­por­tu­ni­ties for schol­ar­ships and grants at the school, these will on­ly be of­fered based on per­for­mance.

Gabriel first ap­proached the Min­istry of the Arts and was told that since the pro­gramme was a con­ser­va­to­ry style one, he could not get tu­ition. He then went to the Arts and Cul­ture Fund at the Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice, who told him that the in­sti­tu­tion would have to be ac­cred­it­ed by the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of T&T (ACTT) be­fore he could ac­cess any fund­ing.

Af­ter weeks had passed, the ACTT de­clined to give this ac­cred­i­ta­tion, leav­ing Gabriel to move for­ward with rais­ing funds on his own. He said he was flab­ber­gast­ed by the de­ci­sion of the coun­cil as the school is renowned world­wide.

He will be hav­ing a con­cert, ti­tled Pro­logue, at Queen's Hall on Au­gust 21. In ad­di­tion to Gabriel, Au­ro­ra Tardieu, Mar­vin Smith, Car­o­line Tay­lor and oth­ers will give mu­si­cal and dra­mat­ic per­for­mances in the show.

Gabriel said he's ex­treme­ly ex­cit­ed to at­tend the act­ing stu­dio, which is known for its prodi­gious, rig­or­ous and all-en­com­pass­ing pro­gramme. He said the school's mot­to, that growth as an ac­tor and growth as a hu­man be­ing are syn­ony­mous, is ex­act­ly what he loves about act­ing.

Gabriel said he had an "OMG" ("oh my God") mo­ment when he at­tend­ed a two-week act­ing in­ten­sive at the Lon­don Acad­e­my of Mu­sic and Dra­mat­ic Art last year.

"What I was most sur­prised by was how se­ri­ous every­body was about it. Act­ing in T&T is seen as a side thing, be­cause not every­one wants to act and it's not a re­al job prospect, but at the acad­e­my, it's al­most as though you're at a uni­ver­si­ty and learn­ing chem­istry or busi­ness; they're ex­treme­ly se­ri­ous about it and it's the same ca­reer as a doc­tor or a lawyer. You're treat­ed as a pro­fes­sion­al.

"We had a lot of mas­ter class­es–on the act­ing side, the busi­ness side, how to pro­mote your­self–with ten-hour days. It was quite in­tense be­cause you have all these emo­tion­al things they want to work on you with, but they in­sist­ed on it be­cause, as an ac­tor, you have to be able to take that pres­sure and still hold some part of you to­geth­er no mat­ter what.

"By the time I grad­u­at­ed I think I was some­body else. I came back here with a will to be­come a bet­ter ac­tor than a singer."

Gabriel de­scribes him­self as a singing/ac­tor who fell in­to act­ing be­cause his singing roles de­mand­ed it. His stage cred­its in­clude Tony in West Side Sto­ry, Prince Er­ic in The Lit­tle Mer­maid and Re­men­da­do in Bizet's Car­men.

As part of the Young Artist Col­lec­tive of the Clas­si­cal Mu­sic De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion of T&T, he has sung the roles of Black Teapot in Rav­el's L'en­fant et les sor­ti­leges, Tamino in Mozart's Die Za­uber­flote, Ae­neas in Pur­cell's Di­do and Ae­neas, Frank in Mozart's The Im­pre­sario (al­so per­formed in Bar­ba­dos at the 100 Voic­es project), and Al­fred in Jo­hann Strauss' Die Fle­d­er­maus. He was last seen on stage as Mar­ius in Les Mis­er­ables, in the ac­claimed stag­ing by The Mar­i­onettes Chorale at Queen's Hall in 2014 and 2015.

�2 Tick­ets for Pro­logue cost $200. In­ter­est­ed peo­ple can al­so do­nate to Raguel Gabriel at Re­pub­lic Bank Ac­count# 870120565531.