Er­ic Bar­ry's ac­claimed play Round the City, hailed as one of last year's best pro­duc­tions, will en­joy a three-day run in the South­ern city on May 27-29, at Na­pari­ma Girls' High School, San Fer­nan­do.Round the City is a col­lec­tion of four short sto­ries set in and around a city in Trinidad. Wo­ven to­geth­er by a taxi dri­ving nar­ra­tor, Glenn Davis, the sto­ries ex­plore themes of love, ob­ses­sion, re­la­tion­ships and crime.The four sto­ries are: Yes­ter­day is Gone-a tale on eu­thana­sia where two sis­ters are torn apart be­cause of their moth­er's five-year long co­ma; Man and 'Oman, which looks at in­fi­deli­ty from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive; Don't Ask. Don't Tell, a trag­ic ho­mo­sex­u­al af­fair in high of­fice; and, Ed­u­cat­ing Pe­ter, a psy­cho­log­i­cal ex­plo­ration of the crim­i­nal mind.

Al­so sit­ting in the di­rec­tor's chair, Bar­ry says that this pro­duc­tion is his most cre­ative­ly chal­leng­ing yet, util­is­ing a com­bi­na­tion of mul­ti-me­dia and live ac­tion to tell the sto­ries. With Round the City Bar­ry re­turns to his dra­mat­ic ori­gins. His ear­ly days in the the­atre was as an ac­tor with the San Fer­nan­do City The­atre Move­ment led by Shane Bick­ram dur­ing the late 80s and ear­ly 90s. With the com­pa­ny, he per­formed in a num­ber of mem­o­rable roles such as Ed­win Car­val­ho in Who Killed Pablo Sier­ra? and Bobo in Junc­tion Vil­lage.Bar­ry lat­er went on to the UWI Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre (now the De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts) to study The­atre Arts. Grad­u­at­ing in 1993, he be­gan to per­form with such north­ern-based com­pa­nies as Ray­mond Choo Kong Pro­duc­tions, Ra­goo Pro­duc­tions and UWI Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre.With the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, he made his mark play­ing Tou­s­saint L'Ou­ver­ture in The Black Ja­cobins and Siew­dass Sad­hu in Tem­ple in the Sea.

In 2000 Bar­ry en­tered a new phase in his cre­ative life by launch­ing Tête-À-Tête Th&ea­cute;âtre, the com­pa­ny he co-found­ed with friends Car­los Alexan­der and Michelle Camp­bell.From then to now the com­pa­ny has staged four orig­i­nal works writ­ten by Bar­ry-The Five Fool­ish Friends in Shhh...it hap­pens; The Five Fool­ish Friends in Shhh...it is Christ­mas; The Five Fool­ish Friends in Shhh...it is Car­ni­val; and, The Cat­a­lyst. In to­tal, these pro­duc­tions have gar­nered sev­en Cacique Awards for ex­cel­lence.Bar­ry's most re­cent award came with the play Par­adise Garage. He was com­mis­sioned by the Play­house Com­pa­ny to com­plete this God­frey Sealy con­cept of an HIV/Aids sto­ry that re­volved around the Par­adise Garage club where the young gath­ered. This pro­duc­tion re­ceived the Cacique Award for Most Out­stand­ing Orig­i­nal Script.Round the City will run at Na­pari­ma Girls' High School on the May 27-29 and stars Glenn Davis, Kar­la Gon­za­les, Mar­vin Dowridge, Kevon Brooks, Pri­or Joseph and Anne Marie An­toinne with ap­pear­ances by Pene­lope Spencer, Arnold Goind­han, Aaron Schnei­der, Jamee­lah Phillips, Bernadette Bac­chus, Ron­delle Al­leyne, Rachel Khan, Shan­nalee De Fre­itas and Car­los Alexan­der.

Show­time on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day is 8.30 pm, and on Sun­day at 6.30 pm.