Pe­ter Ray Blood

The first tent to ben­e­fit from an in­no­v­a­tive ini­tia­tive by the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism is Klas­sic Ru­so. The min­istry has in­vest­ed a huge sum of mon­ey in its Ca­lyp­so Tent En­hance­ment Project and Klas­sic Ru­so has been se­lect­ed as the pi­lot project. The min­istry's ap­proach is to re­brand Klas­sic Ru­so and of­fer a pro­duc­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards which seems to be pay­ing off huge div­i­dends.

To put flesh on the skele­tal main frame of this project, the min­istry has en­gaged the ser­vices of:

• mar­ket­ing con­sul­tants

• light­ing & sound en­gi­neers

• set de­sign­ers

• in­te­ri­or de­sign­ers

• make-up artistes

• hos­pi­tal­i­ty & pro­to­col con­sul­tants

Not since the likes of William Munro's King­dom of the Wiz­ards and the Mar­tineau broth­ers' Spek­taku­la Fo­rum has such grandeur been seen in a ca­lyp­so tent. The eyes of pa­trons at­tend­ing open­ing night bog­gled up­on en­ter­ing the au­di­to­ri­um of the Port-of-Spain City Hall. With black and gold drapes fes­tooned from the ceil­ing of the venue, plush seat­ing was avail­able for every pa­tron, with the res­i­dent or­ches­tra ma­jes­ti­cal­ly perched on raised lev­els above the stage. The Klas­sic Ru­so set now in­cludes state-of-the-art equip­ment pro­vid­ing an am­bi­ence rem­i­nis­cent of a high class club of Man­hat­tan, as its man­age­ment has been told by many pa­trons. The in­ten­tion is to of­fer a pro­duc­tion Broad­way style...Ca­lyp­so on Broad­way.

The cast went through months of train­ing and de­vel­op­men­tal ses­sions in­clud­ing voice train­ing, stage pres­ence and wardrobe con­sul­ta­tions. The cho­rus group is now young, fresh and vi­brant com­ing from var­ied mu­si­cal back­grounds. These in­clude the Opera and Walt Dis­ney pro­duc­tions. This is all in an at­tempt to at­tract a new de­mo­graph­ic. The group is very ex­cit­ed and is to­tal­ly en­joy­ing the tent ex­pe­ri­ence. The ac­com­pa­ny­ing band al­so went through vig­or­ous re­hearsal ses­sions with the artistes. The band is now set for per­for­mance on the stage in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, ie heights above per­form­ing act. The dress code is now for­mal.

Hos­pi­tal­i­ty at the tent now in­cludes for the first time, a VIP all-in­clu­sive sec­tion and a Klas­sic Bal­cony Posse sec­tion.

The show is al­so be­ing sold to cor­po­ra­tions for staff ca­lyp­so func­tions, ie the en­tire cast or part of. The classy Klas­sic Ru­so ex­pe­ri­ence is like no oth­er ca­lyp­so tent, and in­cludes a Klas­sic VIP all-in­clu­sive ta­ble, seat­ing sev­en pa­trons, sold at at $1,050; and, the Klas­sic Bal­cony, for groups of ten pa­trons at $800, or groups of 20 at $1,500, a fee which in­cludes a wel­come cock­tail drink. There is al­so the Klas­sic Gen­er­al of­fer. An­oth­er in­no­v­a­tive at­trac­tion is that Klas­sic Ru­so has spe­cial pack­ages for cor­po­rate ca­lyp­so lovers, so boss­es can bring their staff to en­joy a night out in a ca­lyp­so tent.