From SVG to New York: Number 7 Heads Off-Broadway This October
A personal reflection on a Vincentian production, a night full of surprises, and why I believe its next stage in New York matters.
By Jeronnie Richardson | Founder & Managing Director, JSR Communications
I went to see Number 7 believing there was one thing I already knew.
I knew how it ended.
After all, I had acted in the play before.
Years ago, I played the officer who caught the killer. So when I sat in Russell’s Auditorium on 5 September, part of me expected the evening to be a journey down memory lane. I remembered the story. I remembered the characters. I thought I knew where everything was heading.
I was wrong.
By the time the final scenes unfolded, Kevin Roderiques had managed to surprise me with a play I had already performed in.
And I was far from the only former cast member caught off guard.
It felt surreal
There is something strange about sitting in an audience watching other people inhabit a story you once performed yourself.
At different points during the production, memories came back. Certain characters, moments and tensions felt familiar enough that I naturally began comparing this version with the one I remembered.
Then came the twist.
I will not spoil it.
If you get an opportunity to see Number 7, you deserve to experience that moment for yourself.
What I can say is that the character I once played was no longer the character I remembered.
That completely changed the experience for me.
What I thought would be mostly nostalgia became suspense all over again. For a few moments, I genuinely had to reconsider everything I thought I knew about the story.
Even the former cast members were fooled
Several people who had been involved in earlier productions of Number 7 were in the audience that evening.
Among them were Alphanso “Sleepy” Richards, Caldon Charles, Kisha, whose surname escapes me at the moment, and other former cast members.
That made our conversations afterwards particularly interesting.
We were not watching Number 7 for the first time. We had history with the play. We had memories of how the story worked, and naturally, we went into this production with certain assumptions.
Those assumptions did not help us.
Sleepy, Caldon and I had all been part of the play before, yet none of us saw that ending coming.
Caldon later shared his own reaction to seeing the production again from the audience.
For me, that says something important about what Kevin accomplished.
This was not simply an old play being brought back for nostalgia. He allowed it to change. That gave Number 7 a new life.
What happens behind the curtain matters too
The audience sees the finished production. We see the actors walk onto the stage. We hear the dialogue, react to the scenes and follow the story.
What we do not always see is everything required to make those moments work.
Stage Manager Masika Williams spoke about the production from that side of the curtain.
Theatre depends heavily on timing, organisation, communication, sound, lighting, movement and people solving problems before the audience ever realises there was a problem to solve.
When all of that works, we tend not to notice it. That is usually the point.
And a production such as Number 7 reminds us that the people behind the scenes are just as important to what eventually reaches the audience.
Charlene knew what we did not
One person had an especially interesting position in all of this.
Charlene Roderiques, Kevin’s wife, was also a member of the cast, playing Susan.
And she knew the secret.
While former cast members like me were sitting confidently in the audience drawing on our memories of an earlier version, Charlene knew where this production was heading. She had helped to protect the surprise.
But that was not the only surprise she had been working on.
Kevin’s birthday was the following day, and Charlene had also been helping to pull things together to give her husband the best birthday celebration she could after the performance.
So, in hindsight, there were really two plots unfolding that evening: the one Kevin had written for us, and the one being quietly prepared for Kevin.
The surprise had its own soundtrack
Charlene was not working alone on Kevin’s birthday surprise.
Ky-Yah Roderiques, who was also part of the production as singer and understudy female actress, helped bring another element to the celebration.
She spoke about being part of the planning behind the birthday surprise and about co-writing and singing the song “Number 7” for the occasion.
That added another layer to the evening for me.
The audience had already watched a play built around suspense, deception and surprise. Then, after the final scene, the people closest to the production created something personal for the man behind it.
And the song made that moment even more fitting. Number 7 was no longer only the title of the play. For that night, it had also become part of the celebration of Kevin himself.
Then the cast surprised the playwright
After spending the evening keeping the audience guessing, Kevin eventually became the person who did not know what was coming next.
With Charlene, Ky-Yah and others having quietly helped put the celebration together, the cast surprised him with a birthday cake.
It was one of my favourite moments of the night because it had nothing to do with the script.
The performance was over. The tension had lifted. For a few minutes, the playwright, director, cast, family, friends and supporters were simply celebrating Kevin.
There was something fitting about it. After surprising all of us, somebody finally managed to surprise him.
Hearing from Kevin himself
Kevin also took some time to speak about Number 7, the production and the journey ahead.
Rather than trying to speak for the playwright, I believe it is worth hearing some of that directly from him.
Because the next chapter is no longer just an ambition.
Number 7 is heading to New York.
The production is scheduled for Saturday, 24 October at 7:00 p.m. at Nazareth Regional High School, 475 East 57th Street, Brooklyn, New York 11203.
That is a significant step.
A Vincentian-written production moving from Russell’s Auditorium in Saint Vincent to a New York stage is no longer something being talked about for some distant future. It is happening.
And having now seen this version for myself, I believe the production has earned that opportunity.
After what Kevin did to those of us who thought we already knew Number 7, I am not making any assumptions about what the New York audience will experience.
What I do know is that Brooklyn is getting a story that caught even former cast members off guard.
And that alone should make 24 October interesting.
But what did the audience think?
My own experience with Number 7 was unusual because I had performed in the play before. Most of the people sitting in the auditorium had not.
That is why I also wanted to hear what members of the audience thought after the show.
Those reactions matter.
Ultimately, theatre has to connect with the person sitting in the seat.
You can have a good script, talented actors and an ambitious production, but the audience will still decide whether the story reached them.
On this night, people reacted. They laughed. They watched closely. They talked afterwards.
And many of them were still discussing what they had just seen after the final curtain.
For a production preparing to step onto a much bigger stage, that is encouraging.
SVG talent should not stop at SVG
We often say that Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has talent.
We do.
But I think we sometimes stop the conversation there.
Talent alone does not build an industry.
It has to be developed. It has to be produced. It has to be financed. It has to be marketed. And at some point, some of it has to leave home and prove itself elsewhere.
That is why taking Number 7 from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to an Off-Broadway production in New York means more than one successful trip for a cast and crew.
It puts Vincentian creative work before people who may never have experienced it before.
It puts another Vincentian name, another Vincentian story and another piece of our creative industry in a larger room.
And every time somebody from SVG gets through another door, that door becomes a little easier for the next person to imagine walking through.
I want to see Number 7 take that opportunity.
The cast taking Number 7 forward
Douglas Hamilton — Stanley Johnson
Adam Wilson — Roger Williams
Junior — Kevin Roderiques
John Brackin — Cecile Lynch
Jamal Edwards — Christopher Peter / Frank Harry
Susan — Charlene Roderiques
Dahlia Dawson — Sno Matthew
Betty Howard — Ramona Maloney
Sister Clarice — Orsherna John
Chief Inspector — Jerrol Laidlow
Stage Manager / Understudy Female Actress — Masika Williams
Sound and Lights / Understudy Male Actor — Kenvile Huggins
Singer / Understudy Female Actress — Ky-Yah Roderiques
Co-writer and performer of “Number 7” — Ky-Yah Roderiques
The production is written and directed by Kevin Roderiques and produced by ASK Enterprise Limited.
There are many people behind a production like this, and the journey from Saint Vincent to New York will require more than what audiences eventually see on stage. That is another reason why support matters.
Why JSR Communications supported Number 7
JSR Communications was proud to be among the sponsors of this production.
For me, sponsorship should mean more than placing a logo on a flyer.
Since starting JSR Communications, I have believed that businesses should contribute to the communities around them where they can.
Sometimes that means financial support. Sometimes it means advertising. Sometimes it means providing a platform. And sometimes it means helping make sure a good story continues travelling after the event itself is finished.
This feature is part of that.
The lights at Russell’s Auditorium have gone off, but the story of that night can continue reaching people in Saint Vincent, New York and elsewhere.
That is also much of what we do at JSR Communications.
We help businesses, organisations, events and creatives take what they are doing and present it in ways people can see, understand and respond to — through video recording and editing, interviews, advertising, social media management, website development, script writing, digital promotion and other communication services.
A good event should not disappear when the chairs are packed away.
A good business should not remain unknown because nobody is telling its story properly.
And good work should not be invisible simply because the people doing it are too busy doing the work to promote it.
If you are planning an event, building a business, launching a project or doing work that deserves more visibility, visit jsrsvg.com and see how JSR Communications can help you move it forward.
This is not the final curtain
I went to Number 7 expecting to revisit an old memory.
Instead, I watched something familiar become new again.
I thought I knew the story. I thought I knew the ending. I definitely thought I knew who the killer was.
Kevin got me.
And from the conversations I had afterwards, he got several others who probably thought they should have known better too.
Now Number 7 is taking that same story from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Brooklyn.
That is no small journey.
But every international journey begins with somebody deciding that what was created here deserves to be seen somewhere else.
On 24 October, New York gets its turn.
And I hope they enjoy being wrong about the ending as much as I did.
Jeronnie Richardson
Founder & Managing Director
JSR Communications — Your Way Forward
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