Nicola Moonsammy believes drama can be a portal for change in society. The National Drama Festival 2013 Best Actress awardee is strongly influenced by drama, crediting it to be her motivation in life whether it’s acting, stage managing or writing.
And though Nicola’s stage front performance in Sonia Yarde’s play Mommy was enough to earn her the judges’ nod, she prefers to be behind the scenes. She said that though she enjoys acting, she loves producing and stage managing, even though these roles take her out of the spotlight. And though she sees
herself one day signing autographs and strolling down the red carpet in Hollywood, more importantly and realistically, she is looking for opportunities to better her talent and be the best production manager there is.
Nicola will graduate from the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama this year and she plans to continue to use her talents to address serious issues affecting society.
This use of her talent was front and centre in the play Mommy, which was also directed by Sonia Yarde. Nicola played the role of Bonita, a woman who suffered sexual abuse as a child, which her mother was aware of. She ran away from home as teenager, pregnant with her stepfather’s child. She later married and had another child but her childhood memories of abuse from her mother and stepfather and sister never left her. Then her older daughter was raped by a man she trusted. Bonita’s unhealed wounds burst open and there was hell to pay.
Nicola said she immersed herself in the character. “It put me in a very emotional state. Playing that role made me cry, as I connected and felt the way someone going through that situation would have felt,” she told The Scene.
She was also nominated this year for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Mosa Telford’s Before Her Parting.
Before this she was also nominated for the Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Colour of Race at the Merundoi Mini Festival.
Nicola has been performing from the age of nine, when she was a member of the Marigold Choir and she said she was motivated since then to excel in the arts. One of her first major plays was Ras Leon Saul’s For Better For Worse in which she played a detective who went undercover as a stripper in a club to solve a case.
She has always received unwavering support and encouragement from her best friend Sonia Yarde, Godfrey Naughton and directors and producers like Gem Madhoo-Nascimento, Ron Robinson, Margaret Lawrence and LaVonne George.
And Nicola said she is continually inspired by her 15-year-old daughter Sandra Victoria Moonsammy. As a single parent, she said, she tries to instil strong moral values in her child, drawing on experiences she gained “the hard way”.
Her life is very quiet. She spends much of her time with her daughter. If not, she is at gym, watching a movie or camping out. She is involved in the youth arm of her church, taking leadership roles in dance and drama at the Herstelling Assembly of God.
She joked that her future plans include marrying Denzel Washington, drama, drama and more drama. She noted that not everyone was born to be a lawyer or a doctor, some were born to entertain. “Parents, guardians and teachers, I urge you identify the gifts and talents of young children so as to support and encourage their abilities. Drama creates a more balanced individual as it he lps us to cope with social issues which affects individuals, families and society,” she expressed.
Nicola believes that one’s relationship with one’s family says a lot about one’s identity. She is from a close knit family of five siblings, but nevertheless found her own identity through self-expression and self-motivation; these are some of the attributes that moulded her into the dramatist she is today.
Nicola was born in Georgetown on March 4, 1978 and raised mostly at the Doctor’s Quarters in Brickdam; her stepfather Dr Mowanza Lupuku was attached to the Palms Geriatric Home. Though the area was somewhat quiet, she was never bored; not with the Palms just next door. And she recalled being peculiarly entertained by runaway patients being chased down Brickdam by frustrated nurses from time to time.
Looking back at her childhood, she said it is nearly impossible trying to capture it in one word. “It was many things,” she said. “There were times when I had to take a stand.”
Reminiscing on what she described as a light hearted moment, she said her eldest brother was 13 when he took the keys to their stepfather’s car and “went for a spin” despite her insistence that the car would end up in the nearby trench. Her little brother went along for the ride and just as she said it would, the car was driven into the trench. She recalled how both siblings stared at her in disbelief, alluding that she had “black tongue”.
