Brian Heap Obituary, Death – English-born educator and Jamaican theater star Brian Heap died at 73 on March 24. He “had been quietly ailing since September last year [and] passed away while in hospice care,” according to the Jamaica Gleaner. Many mourn Heap in Jamaica’s theater and beyond. He won the 2020 Caribbean Commonwealth Short Story Prize for “Mafootoo,” a touching bereavement and family story.
He contributed prize money to the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, where he directed before retiring, to develop a playwriting and short story competition for University of the West Indies students. According to his brother, Heap came to Jamaica as a young graduate teacher from “a very working class town in Lancashire.” Staying two years was his plan, but he never left. He got his PhD at UWI after studying at Newcastle and Leeds.
He shaped Jamaican theatre and education for 40 years. He taught at Kingston’s Campion College and St. Joseph’s Teacher Training College before acting. He became Jamaica School of Drama’s Studies Director. He taught drama at UWI Mona from 1975. His love of Jamaica’s rich theatre tradition as a teacher earned him the nickname “Jamaican by assimilation.”
Heap revived the University Players in 2003, a feat. Caribbean and classic plays and musicals earned the trio many Jamaica International Theatre Institute Actor Boy Award nominations. In 2018, he departed as Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts director, artistic director, and staff tutor.
Heap directed 15 Jamaican pantomimes. His passion of Jamaican history and culture inspired “Augus’ Mawnin’,” an artistic celebration of Emancipation Day (August 1) for Jamaican diaspora audiences worldwide. He appeared in Lorraine Hansberry’s “Raisin in the Sun,” Trevor Rhone’s “School’s Out,” Louis Marriott’s “Bedward” and Derek Walcott’s “Remembrance,” and the pantomimes “Pirate Princess” and “Bruckins He published books, conference papers, and articles and won the 2002 Institute of Jamaica Silver Musgrave Medal.
Global Voices quoted actress, coworker, and friend Hilary Nicholson as saying, “Brian had tremendous intellectual and artistic generosity; he did his work so others could find and develop their talents in the arts, particularly in theatre arts.” He assisted deaf children, university students, and theatre professionals enjoy their skills.
He was “an encouraging, kind and caring theatre director — never imposing his will, but always seeking to connect with others so they could grow, even as the artistic piece did.” He was social and valued relationships.” Nicholson said Heap loved Jamaica and worked for years in process theater, drama in education, and drama for development: “He had the ability to incorporate ordinary details of Jamaican culture in his work and to turn the ordinary into something special.” Teaching and mentoring earned Heap praise.
