BAJAN SUN
Bajan Sun Magazine
SEPT 2014
Sonia S. Williams
Author of: This too will pass
S
onia S. Williams is a
Performance Artist,
Theatre Director, Writer,
an Educator in Theatre
Arts, Inspirational Speaker
and Activist. Born January
17th in 1967 at Pleasant
Hall, St. Peter, Sonia
migrated to Brooklyn New
York in 1979 where she
attended
Brooklyn
Technical High School and
Hamilton College, Clinton,
New York. There she
received a B.A. in Theatre
Arts and Women’s Studies and a Watson Fellowship to
Nigeria 1989. Since she returned to Barbados in 1990,
she has acted extensively under the direction of Earl
Warner, in her one- woman plays, and as a performance
poet.
College for the Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica,
Youth Training Entrepreneurship Scheme in Trinidad,
Garrison Secondary School, the Barbados Youth Service
and the Barbados Community College, and in the BFA in
Creative Arts at the University of the West Indies, Cave
Hill. Sonia has completed a Post-Graduate degree in
Higher Education Teaching and Learning at the
University of the West Indies.
Sonia has performed as a dancer on the hotel circuit,
sang backup for a fusion with jazz performer Blak Klay
Soyl and El Vernon Del Congo and can be seen in the
Canadian film The Triangle and the Barbadian feature
film Sweet Bottom. Sonia has written and directed full
length plays including: Amandala and The Ritual, one
woman pieces 3 Points Off Center and Pilgrimage to
Freedom and the choreopoem Embodied Knowings.
Sonia is the recipient of many awards including the
Karen Williams Prize in Theatre 1988, The Actress of
the year Barbados 1990, The Governor General Award
for excellence in Drama in the professional category of
the National Independence Festival of the Creative Arts
1999. She has taught extensively in the Englishspeaking Caribbean including at the Edna Manley
She has dramaturged work for various groups and has
facilitated youth development using theatre in
Communities in Barbados. Sonia participated in the 1998
Writer’s Workshop in Poetry UWI Cave Hill, and the
2001 Writer’s Workshop in Fiction UWI Cave Hill. She
was a writer-in-residence at The Cropper Foundation
Creative Writers Residential Workshop, Trinidad in
2012. She has performed her writings extensively as a
solo artist. She has published a short story and poetry in
POUI. She has three children and one grandchild and
lives on the West Coast of the island, maintaining a close
relationship with the sea. She is a vegetarian who
practices Reiki. Her intention is to facilitate the
development of people and the transformation of lives
Sonia is regarded as one of the most important of a
younger generation of directors working in Caribbean
theatre today. Her credits include Odale’s Choice, Return
to the Source, (excerpts from Mask) written by Kamau
Braithwaite, Children of Negus with writings from
Kamau and Bruce St. John and Shepherd by Rawle
Gibbons of Trinidad and Tobago. She has directed works
for National events for the Commission for Pan-African
Affairs and the Prime Minister’s office and represented
the country at Carifesta, as a writer, director and
performer.
through artistic excellence and service
www.bajansunonline.com/MAGAZINE/ | [email protected] | @BajanSunOnline