Four decades ago, two friends and col­leagues, No­ble Dou­glas and Tony Hall, em­barked up­on the ground­break­ing task of cre­at­ing T&T's first chil­dren's the­atre com­pa­ny. Their fore­sight led to the es­tab­lish­ment of the Lil­liput Chil­dren's The­atre marks that mile­stone with its 40th an­niver­sary pro­duc­tion, Big, on May 15-17, 2015, at Queen's Hall, St Ann's.

With its sig­na­ture ap­proach to dra­ma in­struc­tion, the com­pa­ny har­ness­es the per­form­ing arts as a medi­um to help shape and build char­ac­ter while en­cour­ag­ing self-con­fi­dence through the chal­lenge of the­atre, game play and imag­i­na­tion, a re­lease said."We strive to do this one child at a time," re­flect­ed Dou­glas. "We have suc­ceed­ed in us­ing cul­ture to build the char­ac­ter of every Lil­liput­ian. No mat­ter their dis­ci­pline or pro­fes­sion, Lil­liputians are ex­celling in their fields to­day."

The vet­er­an com­pa­ny is known for stag­ing thought-pro­vok­ing pro­duc­tions that chal­lenge au­di­ences to coun­te­nance al­ter­na­tive po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and cul­tur­al views. An­nu­al­ly, the young thes­pi­ans are charged with cre­at­ing and script­ing a play from the cre­ative con­cepts of cos­tume de­sign­er, Merylle Ma­habir.

In this process, jour­nal writ­ing is used to ex­plore in­tri­cate ideas as an in­te­gral part of their writ­ing process. Un­der the di­rec­tion of Hall, Greer Jones-Wood­ham, Che Ro­driguez, John Isaacs and Wen­dell Man­war­ren, Lil­liput's past pro­duc­tions have in­clud­ed pub­lished plays such as Roald Dahl's Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry and Derek Wal­cott's Ti Jean and His Broth­ers as well as orig­i­nal pro­duc­tions in­clud­ing the in­au­gur­al, Cin­derel­la Strikes Again, Flew and EIEIO An­i­mal Farm.

To date, Eye Eye Eye, which chron­i­cled the plight of street chil­dren, re­mains one of Lil­liput's most crit­i­cal­ly ac­claimed and in­sight­ful pre­sen­ta­tions. This year's cel­e­bra­to­ry pro­duc­tion will again chal­lenge au­di­ences as the com­pa­ny looks at the im­pact of Big is­sues on the lives of lit­tle peo­ple.

MORE IN­FO

Join the Big Face­book event page at http://x2t.com/3/BIG or con­nect with Lil­liput on FB at www.face­book.com/lil­liputchil­dren­sthe­atre or on Twit­ter @NDL­FA or e-mail liza@es­tu­aryPR.com.

Lil­liput Chil­dren's The­atre's 40th An­niver­sary Pro­duc­tion, Big

Dates: May 15 (7.30 pm), May 16 (5.30 pm) and May 17 (5.30 pm)

Venue: Queen's Hall, St. Ann's, Port of Spain

Tick­ets: Chil­dren and adults, $120

Cros­by's Mu­sic Cen­tre, St James–622- 7622; Queen's Hall Box Of­fice (from May 11)–624-1284 and Stu­dents of Lil­liput Chil­dren's The­atre.