George Quaye, the director of the stage play ‘A Detective Calls’ which was in honour of late Ghanaian actor, Ekow Blankson, has narrated how his colleagues gladly accepted to feature in the production.
Mr Quaye speaking on ‘Off-Script with Tilly’ highlighted how the family of Ekow Blankson reacted to the news and their willingness to grace the stage play which came off on April 22nd and 23rd at the National Theatre.
Seasoned actors including Fred Amugi, Akofa Edjean, Naa Ashorkor, and Fiifi Coleman starred in the theatrical masterpiece.
“Deciding to honour Ekow Blankson was emotional for all of us. I don’t want to call it surprising but it’s been a big motivator. Theater is expensive and the cast we’ve put in this one made it more expensive. These are not ordinary people, these are big people we grew up watching. It is not that simple engaging them, their face warm up when we say we’re doing this for Ekow Blankson…when we approached the family, they responded and were excited about it,” George Quaye disclosed.
The CEO of Image Bureau also mentioned that it took the team an estimated GH¢300,000 to pull off the show adding that theatre production in Ghana is not really profitable, especially for start-ups.
“If you want to do theatre because you want to make money in Ghana, then, you are dreaming. You will not make money maybe unless you get to the Uncle Ebo Whyte level where you’ve been able to consistently deliver your promise to your audience.
“It’s not the money, if it were the money, we’d probably pull off a music concert or something. The patrons for those ones are a lot larger. For me, it’s the message first…this project is costing somewhere around GH¢300,000 if I’m not mistaken,” he detailed.