Photo: L-R: Wayne Brady, Anthony Burnley, Conrad Mitchell
Sandwiched between long running plays that have stood the test of time on New York’s hallowed Broadway strip, the curtains pull back for the opening act of the strip’s latest musical offering. Suddenly, with the cold weather outside, the first musical notes have a familiar sound…is that the Mighty Sparrow?
Indeed, it is, and immediately a sense of warmth prevails, bringing the joy of the calypso genre to a captive global audience.
The driving force behind this is Anthony Burnley, who is in the latter stages of making this scenario a reality, carving out a niche that calypso – or any other facet of T&T’s carnival culture – has never exploited before.
“It was not something that I thought about until my friend Conrad Mitchell brought the script for me about twelve years ago. He spent a considerable amount of time in the UK; upon returning to Trinidad he came with the script and said, ‘I was inspired while I was there, it’s about Sparrow but it’s really a migrant story.’ I thought ‘Wow, T&T needs to have this produced and the world needs to see it’.”
With a busy Burnley - a Creative Director of his own company - occupied with work, the project was shelved until the pandemic slowdown forced a revisit. Since then, it’s been on the front burner, having been approved by the man himself, Slinger Francisco, the Mighty Sparrow. “Originally it was a play that we would do locally, but I got a bit despondent with the approach, so I called a friend in New York to ask about the standard to look for so that with that in mind, we could put on the best possible play in Trinidad.”
His contact put him in touch with the makeup artist on the play The Wiz, who, to Burnley’s surprise, said ‘they were awaiting his call’. ‘They’ were multi-talented star Wayne Brady, HBO producer Melissa Haizlip and a host of other industry giants with a common thread: Caribbean heritage.
Timing is everything. “They were extremely familiar with Sparrow’s music and had been talking about getting Caribbean content into the Broadway space. Immediately I travelled to New York to meet with them and at the first reading with Broadway actors, everyone involved remarked that the place just felt Caribbean, with lots of sharing and camaraderie. Many of them were almost in tears, with an outpouring of the sentiment ‘finally, something that represents us.’”
With the production team set up, there are now timelines to be met. “We want the workshop to be completed by Easter 2026 and the premiere to take place in Trinidad two weeks afterwards, which is when you will see the arrangement with certain theatres. We expect to partner with an off-Broadway theatre before going onto Broadway.”
For a perfectionist like Burnley, the project goes further than the massive achievement of the play. “My personal goal is to use this to secure Sparrow’s legacy. Yes, we have to make it sustainable but it’s a great opportunity to ensure people remember who he is and what he did, not just for the Caribbean because calypso was influential for a lot of American music.”
“It’s an original story set to the music and lyrics of Sparrow’s most popular songs, because of that a lot of the characters in the songs are in the play. Like Melda, the Obeah Man, Jean and Dinah.” Thanks to Burnley and his team, Sparrow is about to ‘take over’ once more.
