David Edgecombe

David Edgecombe developed his passion for theatre and the spoken word growing up on Montserrat where he wrote and directed plays and produced concerts as a schoolboy. He was a founding member of his High School’s Dramatic Society and its president. He was also the founder of the Montserrat Theatre Group, which toured many Caribbean Islands including Antigua, St. Kitts, Barbados, St. Thomas, St. Croix and Cuba.   From that beginning, he has become a major force in ensuring that plays are now a prominent part of Caribbean literature.

While studying in Canada, Edgecombe served as resident playwright/director of the Black Theatre Workshop of Montreal, which gave major productions to four of his plays. He became Canada’s Administrator for the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) and was commissioned to write a play based on the works of novelist Austin Clarke. The play Strong Currents became part of Canada’s contribution to that world event.

Edgecombe joined the faculty of the University of the Virgin Islands in 1990 to teach English and was artist-in-residence in 1991 when UVI Little Theater premièred his play

Heaven and took it on tour to four other Caribbean islands.  He also taught Journalism, Speech Communication and Theater before becoming Director of the Reichhold Center for the Arts for 14 years.

As head of the RCA, Edgecombe found many innovative ways of encouraging the creativity of Caribbean youth, starting such noteworthy programs as The Reichhold Caribbean Repertory Company, The Digital Video Institute, The Youth Movie Making Workshop and Starfest.  By producing its own shows, partnering with community groups, providing work opportunities for artists and technicians, expanding into television, the Center has become one of the most significant forces in the promotion of arts and culture in the Virgin Islands.  The Repertory Company has staged plays such as Edgecombe’s Coming Home to Roost and Marilyn, Caryl Phillips’ Hotel Cristobel, Trevor Rhone’s classic Smile Orange, Cecil “Blazer” Williams’ I Don’t want to Bathe, and Dorbene O’Marde’s This World Spin One Way.

David Edgecombe returned to the faculty of UVI in January 2011 to teach full time after spending the past 3 ½ years at Government House as Special Assistant to the Governor for External Affairs. One of his classes, Theatre in the Caribbean, calls for students to collect data on Facebook for a website that is expected to become a portal to Theatre in the Caribbean – past, modern, and contemporary.  He is to direct Trevor Rhone’s Old Story Time, the production that he will bring to the 2011 Alliouagana Festival of the Word.