Oliver Samuels, \u201cThe Caribbean\u2019s King of Comedy,\u201d drew nearly 400 people to the Jamaica Performing Arts Center for an Easter Sunday production of Jamaican dramatist Easton Lee\u2019s \u201cThe Rope and The Cross.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the first time that director David Heron collaborated with Samuels of Saint Mary, Jamaica.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Rope and The Cross,\u201d set in both rural Jamaica and ancient Jerusalem, was first performed in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, for the country\u2019s national hero Michael Manley, the island nation\u2019s fourth prime minister, in 1979.<\/p>\n
The drama presents the events leading up to Christ\u2019s crucifixion through a Jamaican lens with Samuels narrating the story.<\/p>\n
Shevrado Oliver, Jerry Benzwick, Dianne Dixon, Fleurette Harris, Hector Lincoln, Rudolph Shaw, Gabrielle Archer, Laura Salem Harding, Michelle London, Jelani Reid, and Zay Harding, of CBS\u2019s \u201cHawaii Five-O,\u201d rounded out the cast.<\/p>\n
Dignitaries and celebrities in attendance included Ariel Bowen, officer in charge of the Jamaican Consulate in New York; Broadway actor Jerome Preston Bates; award-winning costume designer Raxann Chin; playwright Karl O\u2019Brian Williams; TV and film star Mitzi Pratt; author and hair stylist Marian Haye; and off-Broadway playwright Christin Cato.<\/p>\n
The Jamaica Tourist Board, Mesidor PLLC, Results Promo and Marketing, IMC Media and The Door Restaurant in South Jamaica, were sponsors of the event.<\/p>\n
All royalties paid to Lee\u2019s family will be donated to rebuilding the St. Barnabas Anglican Church, which was damaged by Hurricane Melissa last year, in St. Elizabeth. The Lee family is also setting up a GoFundMe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oliver Samuels, \u201cThe Caribbean\u2019s King of Comedy,\u201d drew nearly 400 people to the Jamaica Performing Arts Center for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1149,79335,79336,79333,9,24,63,79334,122,124,123,905],"class_list":["post-199552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-art","tag-caribbean-celebrity","tag-charity-donation","tag-jpac","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-oliver-samuels","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}