De­siree See­baran

Af­ter 15 years of putting on per­for­mances some peo­ple might think that it's time for Deb­o­rah Jean Bap­tiste Samuel, founder of the Or­a­to­ry Foun­da­tion to throw in the tow­el and start liv­ing life for her­self. But Jean Bap­tiste Samuel doesn't think like that; she's plan­ning the next fif­teen years of the pro­duc­tion as we speak.

Jean Bap­tiste Samuel's Or­a­to­ry Foun­da­tion is an or­gan­i­sa­tion that nur­tures chil­dren and teens in the or­a­to­ry arts. And over the life of Or­a­to­ry, she's seen how the or­gan­i­sa­tion has trans­formed its stu­dents and its own pur­pose.

"It con­tin­ues to be ex­cit­ing and en­er­gis­ing work. I see the young peo­ple who come to me blos­som in­to uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents and young adults. It's giv­ing them life skills and mak­ing them con­quer­ing young peo­ple. The ev­i­dence is there; I have stu­dents now do­ing med­i­cine, law, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, and ac­tu­ar­i­al sci­ence.

And if their grades aren't up, they're not go­ing on stage!" she laughed. Jean Bap­tiste Samuel and her stu­dents have just fin­ished putting on Or­a­to­ry 15: Right in School. The show ran at the Na­pari­ma Bowl on No­vem­ber 6 and 7, fea­tur­ing 26 dra­mat­ic mono­logues and po­ems, all writ­ten by Jean Bap­tiste Samuel and per­formed by Or­a­to­ry stu­dents.

Prepar­ing for a show is al­ways hec­tic, she said, ad­mit­ting that she wrote the pieces for Or­a­to­ry 15 with­in two weeks and trained each per­former per­son­al­ly. But 'Miss' nev­er has time for burn out, she said.

"Some­times I write with ex­haus­tion, but I'm still writ­ing. My stu­dents will call me and ask, 'Miss where is my mono­logue?' The stu­dents pro­pel the cre­ative process and I have to cre­ate all the time. But I do take a rest. From May to No­vem­ber I am most ac­tive. But from now un­til Jan­u­ary I take a rest; so I work hard and rest hard.

The en­er­gy has to come back to me by Jan­u­ary to the next pro­duc­tion."The Or­a­to­ry founder has opened her own law prac­tice in San Fer­nan­do, much clos­er to home; so with the gru­el­ing two-hour dri­ve to Port-of-Spain for work elim­i­nat­ed, she has more en­er­gy to de­vote to Or­a­to­ry. And just in time too. She's just launched the Or­a­to­ry Shake­speare So­ci­ety, where se­lect­ed stu­dents will work ex­clu­sive­ly on Shake­speare­an play on the CXC syl­labus and per­form live shows for school au­di­ences.

"I start­ed do­ing Shake­speare pro­duc­tions when my stu­dents got to the Form Four lev­el and said, "Miss, we get­ting re­al trou­ble with this Shake­speare thing." Jean Bap­tiste Samuel start­ed them off by act­ing out parts of Mac­beth dur­ing Or­a­to­ry class­es. Then two years ago, she de­cid­ed to pro­duce the en­tire play.?

"That re­al­ly mo­ti­vat­ed me to as­sist my stu­dent to ex­cel in their Lit­er­a­ture ex­am," she said. Since then, she's com­mit­ted her­self to do­ing what­ev­er Shake­speare play is on the CXC syl­labus and the so­ci­ety was born out of that com­mit­ments. Last year, Or­a­to­ry took King Lear to Holy Name Con­vent and it was very well re­ceived. Schools are now do­ing dra­ma and the­atre arts as a CXC sub­ject, Jean Bap­tiste Samuel said, "So I'm in line with what the schools are do­ing.

You can al­ways tape it and have it on a DVD, but it's nev­er the same as a live per­for­mance. That is how Shake­speare wrote; he wrote for live per­for­mance. And it's like a liv­ing tu­to­r­i­al; I al­ways say that I take it straight from the page and put it on the stage."

Clos­er to Christ­mas, Jean Bap­tiste Samuel al­so plans to launch a book called Out­pour­ing of Or­a­to­ry, a col­lec­tion of dra­mat­ic pieces from the Foun­da­tion's 15 years of pro­duc­tions. Each of the orig­i­nal pro­duc­tions strives to teach the per­form­ers not just how to orate, but valu­able life lessons through im­agery and metaphor.

"One year I used crick­et as a metaphor for goal set­ting, and?achiev­ing?goals.

I tell the chil­dren that you have to stand at your wick­et and bat for six.?It is more than just a?dra­mat­ic?pro­duc­tion; it is a teach­ing tool, it is a school it is a place where the chil­dren can learn and grow."And she vowed that she'd be pro­vid­ing that spe­cial place "as long as God gives me life and health. I have no fund­ing. The pro­ceeds from the shows are what keep the Or­a­to­ry Foun­da­tion run­ning. But you can't re­al­ly put a price tag on the un­fold­ing of a child's whole pur­pose."