Ali­cia Llanos

The Min­istry of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism is giv­ing the Lit­tle Carib The­atre $2.5 mil­lion to com­plete its ren­o­va­tion. Yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters pre­sent­ed the the­atre's chair­man Michael Ger­maine with a cheque for $1 mil­lion at the Lit­tle Carib The­atre, cor­ner of Roberts and White Streets, Wood­brook. Pe­ters said the re­main­ing $1.5 mil­lion would be pre­sent­ed af­ter the Sep­tem­ber 8 bud­get when the al­lo­ca­tion had been ap­proved by Cab­i­net. He said the Lit­tle Carib The­atre had long rep­re­sent­ed a cul­tur­al hub that host­ed some of T&T's best per­form­ers.

Pe­ters said: "Long be­fore the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), this was here and helped mould the lives of the finest per­form­ers in the arts. "This place (the Lit­tle Carib The­atre) is worth more than NA­PA." Pe­ters said the the­atre was an his­tor­i­cal rel­ic of the growth of lo­cal cul­ture and promised his full sup­port in the com­ple­tion of the project. Up­on hand­ing the cheque over to Ger­maine, Pe­ters said the do­na­tion was in mem­o­ry of the founder of the the­atre, Beryl Mc Burnie, who played a piv­otal role in its growth. Ger­maine said all mem­bers of the the­atre were grate­ful for Pe­ters' com­mit­ment to fos­ter the growth and pre­serve the his­to­ry of the Lit­tle Carib The­atre.

He said ren­o­va­tions on the 62-year-old the­atre start­ed in April 2008 and were sup­posed to be com­plet­ed with­in ten months. Ger­maine said the project was be­ing fund­ed by the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion. He said, how­ev­er, be­fore com­ple­tion the project was halt­ed for want of fund­ing. Ger­maine said when ren­o­va­tions were com­plet­ed the small the­atre would be out­fit­ted with state-of-the-art light­ing and sound sys­tems. He said the the­atre would hold be­tween 280 and 300 pa­trons.

Pe­ters: Mov­ing Car­ni­val back to the Sa­van­nah

Speak­ing to re­porters Min­is­ter of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters said Car­ni­val 2011 will re­turn to the Sa­van­nah. Pe­ters said the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion's plans for the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Cen­tre in the Sa­van­nah would not be used and new con­sul­ta­tions would be held with mas­mak­ers to en­sure what­ev­er was con­struct­ed was what was want­ed by the peo­ple. He said: "The NCC has noth­ing to do with the peo­ple of T&T. We are go­ing to build a place were mas­quer­aders can xante across the stage." Pe­ters added he would en­sure all re­sources would be put in place to as­sist with the growth and de­vel­op­ment of Car­ni­val in T&T.