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"... generally making sure that we were an efficient entity."

Click to enlarge ... Chairman - Cacique Awards 1997 "Scrooge" Christmas Carol 1959 "The Secretary" OB&M Review 1976 "The Model" private collection! 1991

The Drama Years

Christine Johnston, Vice President of the National Drama Association and the current editor of "Backstage", paid this tribute to Veronica in the 32nd issue of the NDATT newsletter.

"Moving on Last year, our effervescent and ever present Secretariat Co-ordinator, Veronica Collens, stepped down, in order to pursue other interests and endeavours.

"From 1997, Veronica kept the Association on an even keel, performing all administrative functions, establishing and maintaining our database, newsletter, e-mail, bookkeeping and generally making sure that we were an efficient entity. After eight years of hard work and almost single-handedly ensuring that NDATT's operations were streamlined, Veronica felt that she needed new challenges!

"Veronica, you will be sorely missed! We wish you the best in all your future projects and know that you will be as invaluable to any other enterprise as you were to NDATT.

"Carpe Diem!"

Christine Johnston • Backstage No. 32 • August 2004

Veronica had compiled issues 1 to 31 of "Backstage" between October 1997 and May 2004 before she retired from NDATT to pursue her work, in copywriting and research, with CARIBSCAPE and as a founding member of the Trinidad and Tobago Humanist Association.

One of Veronica's major contributions to the drama community was as the first chairman of the newly formed Cacique Awards committee set up to review the structure and importance of the awards to appreciate the theatre industry's practitioners.

Veronica was rarely caught in public by a photographer. Her style of public relations was to put the leaders out front, but in this historic picture (top of page) she is seen in the background talking to the President's Aide de Camp while in the foreground is President ANR Robinson, Miss Trinidad & Tobago (Universe) Margot Bourgeois, Prime Minister Basdeo Pandy and his wife Omar.

The significance of this 1997 Guardian photo by Dexter Roberts is that it captured Veronica in a moment of triumph. She was the architect and engineer of this event, the first of the Cacique Awards ceremony in the format we know it today. The artistic production was directed by Mervyn De Goeas.

The images on this page capture some of Veronica's history and love of theatre. Her son Kirk continues her passion and is now pursuing a career in drama, studying for a theatre arts degree in London. Before he left Trinidad he had performed professionally as an actor on stage having received training at the Liliput Theatre with the full support and encouragement from his mother.