We must be serious – Ebo Whyte to industry players

For government, businessmen and private companies to invest in the creative arts, persons in the industry must at all times be serious with their crafts, playwright and Chief Executive Officer of Roverman Productions, James Ebo Whyte has intimated.

Affectionately called Uncle Ebo Whyte, the revered playwright whose production house is one of the few to always get sponsorship and support for their creative arts products in an interview with GhanaWeb.com mentioned that, unless some level of seriousness is attached to the arts, no investor will conceive the idea of investing in the sector as it will not make business sense.

“It will have to begin with the artist themselves. We’ve got to start taking ourselves seriously, we’ve got to understand that this is an awesome sector,” he argues. “We’d have to have a mind to the bigger picture and the bigger picture being that those of us in the industry have the potential of a shifting paradigm in Ghana.

“Those of us in the creative industry have power. Whether we are achieving that or not, is irrelevant. We have that power to influence society and we could do that positively or negatively. If we had our mind on the bigger picture as in the impact we can make to mould society, it’d help.”

He continued: “Let’s take the developing of our craft much more seriously. When we have done that, then the room may be opened for not just government but even people in the private sector to come in and put in their money because they will know that that money will not be wasted and it’d not go down the drain.”

Ebo Whyte’s remarks come in the wake of concerns from industry players that they get little or no support from businesses or corporate Ghana.

Meanwhile, Roverman Production is set to stage its second play for the year 2019. Titled ‘I Want Your Wife’, the play, according to Ebo Whyte will worth the while of patrons.

‘I Want You Wife’ shows on 6th and 7th July; 13th and 14th July at the National Theatre. There will be two shows on each day with the first showing at 4 PM and the second, 8 PM.