Broadway bound | Caribbean Beat

After decades delighting audiences in Trinidad & Tobago and Great Britain, Melanie (Hudson) La Barrie makes her Broadway debut. Caroline Taylor learns more. Published in the November/December issue of Caribbean Beat It’s what the Independent called “a gloriously silly, unexpectedly poignant” jukebox musical that — using the music of Grammy-winning songwriter and super-producer Max Martin …

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“My music has an accent” | Caribbean Beat

The sonic world of composer Tania Léon was shaped by her childhood in Cuba — and by her willingness to reinvent herself, writes Caroline Taylor. Published in the September/October 2021 issue of Caribbean Beat You’re probably not going to find yourself humming the music of Cuba-born composer, conductor, and educator Tania León. That is, if …

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Anna Deveare Smith brings “Notes from the Field”

October 6th: the promo I saw a Facebook post today that made me smile. Hard. Wide. Wisftfully. Nostalgically. One of my "idols" — the incomparable Anna Deavere Smith — was performing at my old workplace, Second Stage Theatre. Why the wist? A dozen years or so ago, I'd have been working on that show. Seeing that show …

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K2K: Fashion, Mas and Philanthropy | OUTLISH

Originally written for and published on OUTLISH.com in 2012 “A breath of fresh air.” That was the phrase that numerous people used over and over, when I spoke to them after K2K’s launch of their 2013 Carnival presentation, “The Human Race” last Thursday. Twin designers Karen and Kathy Norman have introduced something to the Carnival …

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Heather Headley: a star with her feet on the ground | Caribbean Beat

Originally written for and published in Caribbean Beat magazine in 2012. The full interview transcript is published here, and at Discover Trinidad & Tobago. In 2000, news spread about a Trinidad-born actress making waves on Broadway. Her command of her emotions made you sure that her onstage tears must come from some fresh real-world trauma. The truth was very …

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Heather Headley: One of Trinidad’s Brightest Stars

This interview was done for and published in full on Discover Trinidad & Tobago, and formed the basis of another article in Caribbean Beat magazine. It took a while, but I finally caught up with Heather Headley for a proper interview in late January 2012, just a few weeks before Whitney Houston’s passing. We talked about her memories of …

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K2K Carnival’s Karen & Kathy Norman | Discover Trinidad & Tobago

Originally written for and published in Discover Trinidad & Tobago magazine in 2012 The twins behind K2K Alliance, Kathy and Karen Norman, have generated a lot of buzz around their new medium-category, all-inclusive 2012 Carnival band “The Waters – Seas of Consciousness”. They talked to Caroline Taylor about the story behind their designs; the journey to making …

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