The Strolling Players Theatre Company
of
Trinidad and Tobago
Welcome to Caribbean Theatre
Freddie Kissoon
A LEADING LIGHT IN CARIBBEAN THEATRE
Freddie Kissoon ~ A.D.B.; H.M.B. is the founder and director of The Strolling Players. He is an actor, director, drama teacher and playwright.
As an actor, he has made 210 stage appearances. Some of the West Indian plays in which he acted were Ping Pong, Sea at Dauphin, Drums and Colours, Man Better Man, which was staged in London, Croydon and Glasgow for the Commonwealth Arts Festival in 1965. He has also performed in two of his own plays - 'Mamaguy' and 'Zingay'. He acted in such foreign plays as Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Chitra, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, The Story of the Passion and in Macbeth and Hamlet, which the English director John Ainsworth also took to Barbados and Guyana in 1954.
As a director, Kissoon has directed more than 100 plays. He also directed cultural shows at Skinner Park on the occasion of the visits of the Emperor Haile Salassie of Ethiopia and His Excellency Roland Michener, Governor General of Canada. In his capacity as drama officer, he directed several cultural shows for visiting delegations and the Trinidad show for Expo Grenada in 1969.
As a drama teacher, Freddie Kissoon has conducted classes for American students at the Ecumenical Centre and the Peace Corps in 1968 at the University of the West Indies - St. Augustine. He was in charge of acting classes for the Vacation School in the Arts at UWI in 1966, 67 and 71. He also taught creative drama at six Teachers' Training Colleges, three youth camps and several community centres. He has taught classes in such places as Nelson Island, Lopinot, Mayaro, YTC – Golden Grove, Blanchisseuse and Tobago. He also had sessions in Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Kitts and Curacao.
As a playwright, Freddie Kissoon has written 66 plays, five more in collaboration with others and the 78 fifteen minute episodes of 'Calabash Alley'. He wrote most of the script for Trinidad's first full-length movie, 'The Right and the Wrong'. He was the first to be commissioned to write a radio serial (Calabash Alley) by Radio Trinidad and his play 'Zingay' was the first to be televised on Trinidad and Tobago Television. His plays have been staged all over the West Indies as well as New York, Washington, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Montreal, London and Nigeria both on stage and television.
Freddie Kissoon with a crew from The Strolling Players also stage-managed several shows for Government of Trinidad and Tobago locally including the Mahalia Jackson Show in Port of Spain and San Fernando and The Nigerian Show in 1977 in Port of Spain, San Fernando, Chaguanas and Tobago.
Freddie Kissoon also wrote the first book by a West Indian on Creative Drama. It is entitled 100 Exercises in Creative Drama and has been recommended by the CXC (Caribbean Examination Council) for use throughout the West Indies.
A graduate teacher of the Government Teachers' Training College, Freddie Kissoon is a former British Council Scholar. He is an Associate of the Drama Board (ADB) and holds certificates in Diction and Drama from the Central School of Speech and Drama Embassy Theatre, Swiss Cottage and London University.
On 31st August 1987, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago presented him with a national award - The Humming Bird Medal (HBM) for his contribution to Culture-Drama and Theatre.
Freddie Kissoon also hold awards from the Port of Spain City Council, the Beryl Mc Bernie Foundation for the Arts, Textel, BGWU, the Department of Culture Curacao, the Diego Martin Regional Corporation and Two Cacique awards from the National Drama Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
On April 24, 2004 at a banquet held in New York City, The Board of Governors of The Trinidad and Tobago Folk Arts Institute based in New York awarded Freddie Kissoon with 'The Citation of Merit - for the massive and enduring contribution made in the field of drama in Trinidad and Tobago'.
