Plans to com­mem­o­rate the 50th sea­son of the Ca­lyp­so Re­vue next year were an­nounced at a break­fast/me­dia launch at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Chair­man of the tent's man­age­ment com­mit­tee Michael Os­ouna (Sug­ar Aloes) said a per­ma­nent home was be­ing sought for the icon­ic ca­lyp­so tent. He said: "We are not just look­ing for a build­ing or land to build a build­ing. "We are try­ing to es­tab­lish a space where we can cre­ate the Re­vue in­to a tourist at­trac­tion, a place where re­searchers can find in­for­ma­tion on the Grand Mas­ter (the late Kitch­en­er), on Dr Cal­liste, on the Mighty Bomber, on Lord Cristo, and on all mem­bers of the Re­vue. "With­in that space, we will op­er­ate our an­nu­al ca­lyp­so shows but through­out the year we will use the space to cre­ate rev­enue to have a func­tion­al, op­er­at­ing venue sev­en days a week, 12 months of the year where we can al­so of­fer full-time em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties to our cast and mem­bers of the wider com­mu­ni­ty. "In oth­er words, we will be try­ing to di­ver­si­fy the func­tion­al ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the Ca­lyp­so Re­vue tent."

To re­alise this "am­bi­tious dream," Os­ouna said he was plead­ing with Gov­ern­ment agen­cies, the fi­nan­cial sec­tor, and cul­tur­al ac­tivists to lend their sup­port. He said: "Let us ap­proach this project as a na­tion­al agen­da item. "Let us work to achieve a goal that will cer­tain­ly re­dound to the ben­e­fit of all cit­i­zens of this na­tion. Let us pre­serve and glob­alise the na­tion­al icon that is the Re­vue tent, a sta­tus it so rich­ly de­serves." Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, a spe­cial guest at the event, in his re­marks en­dorsed the idea, promis­ing to talk with the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands and the Min­istry of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism to en­sure the goal was achieved and "the Re­vue would have a year-round home." Ob­serv­ing that the tent's gold­en an­niver­sary co­in­cid­ed with the na­tion's cel­e­bra­tion of its 50th an­niver­sary, the min­is­ter said it was a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the lives of both en­ti­ties, and giv­en the im­por­tant watch­dog role the ca­lyp­son­ian had al­ways played in the so­ci­ety, en­cour­aged one to pon­der on "what would have been the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go with­out the Re­vue."

The Re­vue's cel­e­bra­to­ry ac­tiv­i­ties are sched­uled to be­gin with an in­ter-faith ser­vice in Oc­to­ber, fol­lowed by a black-tie din­ner to pay trib­ute to all who had been as­so­ci­at­ed with the tent over the past 50 years. Al­so planned are an an­niver­sary mag­a­zine, ra­dio pro­grammes that be­gin next month, four re­gion­al con­certs, a car raf­fle, retro night con­cert next Feb­ru­ary 1, and a three-year schol­ar­ship to be award­ed to a young per­son for ac­cess­ing at the start of the school year in Sep­tem­ber 2014. Ca­lyp­son­ian and chair of the Acad­e­my of Arts, Let­ters and Pub­lic Af­fairs at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool (Chalk­dust) gave an his­tor­i­cal ac­count of the Ca­lyp­so Re­vue, its founders and man­agers. Coun­cil­lor Di­ane Bou­caud, of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, brought greet­ings on be­half of Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing. Pres­i­dent of Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Broth­er Re­sis­tance) de­liv­ered a brief ad­dress and Re­la­tor (Willard Har­ris) pro­vid­ed en­ter­tain­ment. The event was host­ed by the Re­vue's mar­ket­ing man­ag­er Rudolph Ot­t­ley. Al­so present were Laven­tille/Mor­vant MP Don­na Cox and Carib Brew­ery's Col­in Mur­ray.