"We were the chil­dren of the in­de­pen­dence era, who were raised on hope and bright ex­pec­ta­tions, and were in­tox­i­cat­ed by the prospect of be­ing able to shape our own des­tiny af­ter four hun­dred years of slav­ery and colo­nial­ism. But we were not ex­pe­ri­enced enough to un­der­stand the con­straints that were hold­ing back the new so­ci­ety we en­vis­aged."

-Andy Thomas, 1985

The Di­ary of Con­fine­ment, a play by ac­claimed T&T drama­tist Shango Baku, pre­miered at the Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege in 2009. The play is set to re­turn in 2012 as a cen­tre­piece of T&T's 50th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions. Baku's play is a ret­ro­spec­tive of the 1970's Black Pow­er rev­o­lu­tion in T&T. Its cen­tral char­ac­ter is a re­make of the late Andy Thomas, the na­tion's longest serv­ing death row pris­on­er. Thomas, a jour­nal­ist, was sen­tenced for his part in the killing of a po­lice of­fi­cer dur­ing the tur­bu­lent up­ris­ing of the 1970's. He was fi­nal­ly grant­ed a Pres­i­den­tial par­don in 1987 af­ter spend­ing more than a decade on death Row. Baku's di­ary takes an in­sight­ful look at a defin­ing chap­ter in na­tion­al his­to­ry.

In 2009 The Di­ary of Con­fine­ment was co-pro­duced by Cul­ture House (Trinidad), The To­ba­go Dra­ma Guild (TDG), and UK-based Cul­tur­al Ex­change Through The­atre In Ed­u­ca­tion (CETTIE). Much more than a play, the DOC Project, as it was called, in­volved school work­shops, pub­lic read­ings, street the­atre and in­ter­gen­er­a­tional dis­course at venues through­out the coun­try. The same part­ner­ship will pro­duce the DOC Re­loaded in 2012, us­ing dra­ma as a fo­cus for ed­u­ca­tion, en­ter­tain­ment, cul­ture, and com­mu­ni­ty di­a­logue across all sec­tors of Trin­bag­on­ian so­ci­ety. The DOC Re­loaded will en­gage stu­dents, schol­ars, per­form­ers and grass­roots com­mu­ni­ty groups in a mix of ac­tiv­i­ties be­tween June and Sep­tem­ber 2012, cul­mi­nat­ing with a new pro­duc­tion of the Di­ary of Con­fine­ment at ma­jor venues in T&T. The project will pro­vide a plat­form for na­tion­al di­a­logue, rem­i­nis­cence and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion dur­ing a cru­cial mile­stone in this coun­try's his­to­ry.