Guyana Baptist Drama Group creating stage plays with purpose

Mar 26, 2023 News

Changing lives through drama…

By: Vanessa Braithwaite Moore

Kaieteur News – Director of the Guyana Baptist Drama group, Kellon Ault, believes that stage plays should not be random, but should be purpose driven and should provide solutions to situations that affect us daily. Presently, the group is on tour with a stage play called ‘Broken Minds’, which highlights the issue of mental health, while raising awareness about the effects of discrimination. Ault started drama as a child at church but over time, his passion for the art grew as well as his desire to see others develop this skill; something he said is unpopular in the Christian community. “We would normally have Sunday School concerts, Christmas concerts and Easter concerts and I would normally be a part of the skits. I grew as a teenager I began to write the little skits and poems and such and that talent grew by practice and by God given talent,” he said.

Kellon Ault

The former Mackenzie High School student then became a member of the renowned Mike James Drama Group, where he got the opportunity to act in several stage plays and movies. However, he wanted to hone his skills independently, which prompted him to start his own drama group. That group pioneered drama in the Christian community. “In the Christian community we see a lot of persons doing dancing and singing but we don’t see much drama; we don’t see much stage plays. So, as a group we provide stage plays for the family so that the entire family can come out and enjoy and at the same time receive a good message that they can talk about, that can encourage them, that can help them to deal with situations in life and relax.”

After much practice and persistence, he subsequently directed his first play, ‘The Pastor, the Pimp and the Prostitute’. With support from his family and the Church, he rose to fame in the dramatic arts arena in Linden and Georgetown. Other popular plays to follow included ‘My Baby’s Daddy’,’ the Bible and the Batel’ and ‘Show me the Evidence’.

Ault said he fell deeply in love with drama and put his all into delivering quality and impacting plays. He also takes the role of the given character seriously and ensures the audience connects with the character. “Taking on that character, develop that character, bring that character out in the best possible way as I could and I enjoyed that. And one of the things that I love about acting too is the joy I get from performing and seeing the joy people get reacting to a performance; I love seeing that joy,” he said.

Presently, the group has 11 members from various churches and Ault said his goal is to transform the group into the best Christian based drama group in Guyana and the Caribbean, as well as to go on tours to more outlying communities.

He also wants to focus on sifting out new talent and nurturing that talent as he believes acting impacts a person’s life positively as well as to cultivate other skills they may be struggling with such as public speaking. When a person is involved in the entire production, it gives them an opportunity to build on various skills as it is not only those on stage who contributes but those behind the scene as well such as the technical persons, the musicians etc.

Acting also causes the cast to build their personal character as they would want to portray the same positive character both on stage and off stage.

While acting brings Ault and his cast insurmountable joy, as with anything else comes challenges, and for them, it is balancing work and family life with preparing for the plays as that too is time consuming. He believes Guyanese may not get a true sense of what is involved in stage play preparation and investment, hence may be hesitant to support because of the entrance fee. Ault however explained that it is an investment into months of preparation, the cost for props and other cost attached to making the stage play possible. He also believes that more should be done locally to provide professional training and mentorship to local actors as most are self-taught who earn through observation.

The play ‘Broken Minds’ will be in Linden at LICHAS on April 1^st. Tickets are $1,200.00.

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