Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter"IT'S LIKE a joke," exclaimed renowned radio announcer and playwright Barbara Gloudon. "Me never mek it to Israel but the set find its way down there," Mrs. Gloudon stated, as she commented on a mishap that sent the entire backdrop of this year's Pantomime, Miss Annie, to Haifa in Israel.
The set was supposed to be shipped to Toronto, Canada, where the Pantomime is scheduled to give two performances on Saturday at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. However, due to what has been described as a human error, the set ended up in the Holy Land.
The Little Theatre Movement that puts on the Pantomime hired B.L. Williams International Limited to ship the set to Toronto. The Gleaner spoke with Ted Muschett, the director of B.L. Williams, and he said that they shipped the set through Zim Lines, an overseas-based company.
"The person who is dealing with the shipment is Zim Lines. We packed a shipment for Little Theatre in a Zim box and that container was sent to Toronto by Zim Lines," said Muschett.
However, the container somehow found its way to Israel and the Little Theatre's agent was notified.
"It was our duty to get the shipment to the port of Toronto, which we fulfilled. Once in Toronto, the Zim agent remanifested the shipment somewhere else. However, our contractual obligation ended once the shipment reached Toronto," Muschett explained.
"If it was a situation where we were asked to use our agent in Toronto to have the shipment delivered then we would take responsibility. But it was Little Theatre's request that they would use their agent and their agent would be doing the Custom's clearance on that port."
Muschett adds: "We were contracted to move the container to Toronto through Zim Lines and that contract was fulfilled."
Yet in all of this, Mr. Muschett hastened to add that Zim Lines would foot the bill of getting the Pantomime's set to Toronto and that the air freight was supposed to arrive today at 6 a.m. there.
The container left the island on 23rd of May and was expected to arrive on the second of June. However, Mr. Muschett adds that he has helped out in whatever way he could.
"We assisted in every manner possible, every way shape or form once we found out that this happened, because you know we just like to follow up for our customers."
