Wednesday, 12 February 2014

Here Comes "The Queen Of The Night

The Lagos Theatre Festival invites you into The Queen of the Night. Directed by Wole Oguntokun at Freedom Park, Broad Street. February 28, March 1 & 2. Time - 3.15pm and 6.15pm.
The British Council has, for three years, been working on a theatre programme to stimulate innovation in theatrical practice in Nigeria. Alongside the presentation of excellent UK work in Lagos, we have sought to offer opportunities for professional exchange between Nigerian and British theatre makers. The culmination of this work led to the British Council launching the first Lagos Theatre Festival which focused on site specific work in response to a dearth of theatre infrastructure in the city and Nigeria at large. The festival which presented 1 UK and 3 Nigerian site-specific theatre productions took place in February 2013.
This year the British Council is working with a team of local producers to produce the next Lagos Theatre Festival. The festival will feature site specific theatre, as did the last theatre festival in Feb 2013. A theatre director from the United Kingdom will be collaborating with a local producer to produce a new show that will be presented at the festival in addition to other plays developed from stories inspired by the city of Lagos. A call out for stories from Nigerians about their experience of the city that never sleeps was sent out.
Three exciting stories have emerged from this search for original stories about Lagos, which is part of an initiative to inspire new plays for the Festival billed for February 2014.
The winning stories in no particular order are: ‘The Diagnosis’ by Bode Asiyanbi, ‘Queen of the Night’ by Anthony Bosko and ‘Waiting for a Lottery’ by Femi Kayode Amogunla.
Assistant Director of the British Council, Ojoma Ochai in commenting on the stories said:
‘These delightful and beautifully written stories truly capture the essence of living in a city that never sleeps. They are poignant, joyous and most importantly, original. We are glad to have them inspire new plays for next year’s festival’.
The three stories, after development into site-specific plays, will be performed at the festival by three Nigerian theatre companies, namely: Renegade Theatre (led by Wole Oguntokun), Imagine Nigeria (led by Ifeoma Fafunwa) and Oxygen Koncepts (led by Toyin Oshinaike).
This theme for the festival marks the beginning of what will hopefully be the injection of fresh ideas and stories from, and about, the Lagos experience and also a continuation of the collaboration between Nigerian and UK theatre sectors to boost theatre practice in Lagos and Nigeria.

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