NEW YORK, USA — Tony award winning actress, the legendary and phenomenal Cicely Tyson, is Broadway’s newest darling. A daughter of the Caribbean Diaspora, due to her Nevisian heritage, Tyson was awarded her first ever Tony award on Sunday June 9 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City for her riveting and masterful role as Carrie Watts in The Trip To Bountiful, one of Broadway’s most successful and critically acclaimed plays this season.
A legion of distinguished Caribbean delegates, in New York for Caribbean Week, took their Trip To Bountiful to witness Tyson’s compelling and award winning performance. The delegation included the minister of tourism for The Bahamas, Obie Wilchome, and Mark Brantley, deputy premier of the island of Nevis, from which Tyson’s Caribbean heritage flows.
Both ministers seized the opportunity to congratulate Tyson and other cast members for their memorable and inspiring performance. Brantley also extended an invitation from the government of Nevis to Tyson to join the home nation of her parents in celebrating the island’s 30th anniversary of independence in September.
In addition to Tyson’s heritage, The Trip To Bountiful enjoys other ties to the Caribbean, including cast member and Academy award winner Cuba Gooding Jr. of Barbadian and Cuban heritage, as well as Marvet Britto – one of the producers of the play and president/CEO of The Britto Agency – a global brand architect and public relations firm that represents the island of Anguilla.
An inspiring American classic, The Trip to Bountiful, also stars Tony nominated actress Condola Rashad and the wonder of Vanessa Williams. It tells the story of Carrie Watts (Cicely Tyson), who is trapped in a cramped Houston apartment with her soft-spoken son (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and out-spoken daughter-in-law (Vanessa Williams), dreaming of a return to her home in the small Gulf Coast town of Bountiful, where she grew up and raised her family. Fearing that she’s an imposition and chafing under her daughter-in-law’s watchful eye, she steals away with her latest pension check and heads home in the journey of a lifetime. The result is an unforgettable play about the idea of home and its power to sustain us.
