The National Cultural Foundation (NCF) through the Theatre Arts desk is launching our Online Theatre Repository featuring the Poetry Project Showcase. This Drama-in-Education initiative directed by theatre stalwart Icil Phillips dramatises select poems on the CXC syllabus for English B (Literature) using improvisation.

Ms. Phillips has championed the Poetry Project in Secondary Schools across the island for over a decade with a team of four actors, traveling to schools at their request. The project was halted due to the COVID -19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the NCF saw it necessary to revive the project and partnered with Ms. Phillips to produce the Poetry Project as a showcase in April 2024. The recorded series of dramatized poems featuring actors Tiffani Williams, Addis Ayele Matthias, Asiah Shepherd and Kraigg Carrington will now be made available to the region’s English Literature and Theatre Arts students as a study companion.

The Cultural Officer – Theatre Arts (NCF), Ms. Janelle Mitchell, is extremely proud to have produced the Poetry Project first as a showcase and now a digital resource for Caribbean students. “As one of the former actors in the Poetry Project in 2014, I have firsthand insight to the impact it had on students and teachers as they moved into exam preparation, and the development it provided for the actors during this project. I believe that it is essential to carry the mantle on behalf of Ms. Phillips through the provision of this online repository for students and teachers as a drama-in-education resource as part of their classroom activities.” We invite all CSEC English B/Theatre Arts students and teachers to log onto www.ncf.bb and enroll in the free drama content to assist them with the opportunity to grasp new interpretations of the poetry, build their critical thinking and understanding, as they prepare for the upcoming examinations.