Prolific producer Gem Madhoo-Nascimento has added her voice to concerns raised by others in the cultural industry of being overlooked for funding by government and recognition of their work.
In a letter in yesterday’s Stabroek News, Madhoo-Nascimento, Director of GEMS Theatre Productions, adverted to recent lamentations by chutney/soca singer Terry Gajraj and filmmaker Mahadeo Shivraj and welcomed them to the club.
“I have lived and worked in Guyana and I am yet to receive funding from our Govern-ments, in spite of submitting a number of professional proposals for … my productions, save and except when the Ministry of Tourism, under Geoffrey daSilva, commissioned me to produce a musical ‘Guyanese Roots and Rhythms’ which I wrote and directed for World Cup Cric-ket in 2007, staged at the Sophia Exhibition Centre”, Madhoo-Nascimento said.
While she was appreciative that she had received an award from the Guyana Cultural Association of New York, a Lifetime Achievement Award for Theatre Arts from the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture in 2014 and a Women of Distinction Award from the YWCA she said that she was yet to receive a National Award for her 42 + years as a producer and co-producer. She said that she had staged myriad of productions, 250+ to date, ranging from classical and jazz concerts, comedic and dramatic plays, TV sitcoms, the popular Link Shows staged annually (1981-2022), youth theatre workshops, over 12 overseas tours to the Caribbean and North America, from 1983-2007 and the list goes on…”so welcome again to the club”.
She said that she also wondered who or what committee decided on the ‘Creative Arts Awards’ recently made by the Theatre Guild of Guyana, “not because of the persons who received them, but because of those who did not and should have”.
