Elisha Baptiste: Attending to the business of show business

Elisha Baptiste is bringing a slice of Hollywood to Trinidad and Tobago next month. This patriotic, talented and accomplished young television and film producer has taken on the new role of event manager as her newly-formed company, Elisha Creates produces a ground breaking workshop event for local actors, scheduled for September 22 at the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in St Clair.

Entitled The Business Behind The Show, the workshop aims to share the extensive knowledge and experience of Los Angeles-based, Trinbagonian actor, Noel Arthur (Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, Glee, NCIS and The Young and The Restless) with local thespians, dramatists and other interested parties. Baptiste explained her involvement to WMN.

“I love supporting people who are creative,” she said, “and I am very proud to be able to bring people together who all have one end-goal in common. Trinidad and Tobago has a lot of talent - that’s no secret and that cannot be denied. I believe that if we come together and really support each other professionally and respect what each person brings to the table, the artistry we create from synergising our talents can make an even greater impact on the world. But... we absolutely need to remember and be mindful of the business aspects of it... That is one key component that often goes missing.”

Baptiste has worked at Caribbean New Media Group in Trinidad, now reverted to Trinidad and Tobago Television, and recently returned from working at teleSUR English in Ecuador, a Latin American multimedia platform. While there she still promoted TT by enabling and producing segments on Panorama for their news broadcasts, as well as interviews with artistes, Kees Dieffenthaller and Fay Ann Lyons-Alvarez. After working in Ecuador for three years, Baptiste resigned from the company on amicable terms and left Ecuador in March 2018.

“It was quite a novel learning experience and Ecuador is an amazing place, but the time had come for me to move on and focus my energy more on my own personal and professional goals,” she revealed. “I then travelled to Los Angeles in April after co-writing and co-developing an original series with my writing partner who is based in Los Angeles. I had been virtually introduced to actor and acting coach, Noel Arthur a couple years ago through a mutual friend. We kept in touch and I reached out to him before my trip and mentioned that he was co-starring in a play, so I went to support him. I was impressed by his performance and in a subsequent meeting, he casually mentioned that he had been wanting to do a workshop to share some of his knowledge and experience in Trinidad and suggested that maybe I could produce it... Well that was all that I needed to hear.

“The fact that it was a positive initiative that would help our industry and probably inspire others, but was limited only because he did not have the right person to get it off the ground was enough motivation for me. I returned to Trinidad intending to focus on my writing, but at the same time I also wanted to help make Noel’s dream a reality and after my first-hand experience of how ‘the town’ works I knew that what he had to offer was definitely important and that this workshop could help fill a void. Long story short, I’m producing the workshop for him and it is officially included and listed as part of the 2018 TTFF (TT Film Festival).”

While in the US, Baptiste also attended the Screencraft Writers Summit in Atlanta, Georgia and even snagged a subsequent meeting with Screencraft co-founder John Rhodes back in Los Angeles. According to Baptiste, Rhodes expressed a desire to partner with the TTFF and hoped to bring an exclusive three-person panel of top Hollywood industry insiders as part of this year’s TTFF programme. Armed with Rhodes’ blessing, Baptiste attempted to make the connection but, unfortunately, due to budget constraints, that initiative could not be realised this year.

“I’m also very excited about this prospect,” she enthused, “because I experienced first-hand what a difference the Screencraft level of insider knowledge can bring to professionals in the industry. I definitely want to assist in creating that opportunity for the people in our industry here and I hope that one day soon this will become a reality.”

Constantly inspired by the rich and vibrant culture and abundance of talent here in TT, Baptiste founded Elisha Creates to assist in realising not only her goals and ambitions, but the dreams of the many creative people here.

“I am not sure where exactly my drive and ambition originated from,” Baptise recalled, “but I remember being maybe eight or nine-years-old. I was in my grandmother’s bedroom and she had a globe on the dresser. I distinctly recall searching the globe for Trinidad and Tobago and then realising how small our twin island Republic was in comparison to the other continents and countries. It was at that moment, I knew that there was more out there, and I wanted to experience what I could. Living, learning and working in different countries has expanded my ability to envision and to manifest all possibilities; my experiences have enhanced my character as a woman, a producer and overall as a human being. I have learned how to work with people from different backgrounds, which is often challenging, but one thing remains the same: a truly genuine person with integrity will always stand out from the crowd and those are exactly the qualities I strive to embody.”

For more on Elisha Baptise or The Business Behind The Show workshop, please log on to www.elishacreates.com, email: info@elishacreates.com or visit the TriniLevelUp page on Facebook

Photos courtesy Mauricio Izquierdo,

Make up, hair and styling by Elisha Creates