To raise awareness of environmentally destructive behaviors in their community, faculty and students at Dennis Osadebay University adapted a poem about ending cultural pollution into a play about the consequences of environmental pollution. In this essay, members of the team reflect on this production and its efficacy.

The team at Shanty Theatre dove deep into Igbo mask and masquerade traditions to stage the largest of them all: the Ijele Masquerade. Angelea Okolo and Eseovwe Emakunu detail the research and creative process they used to bring the masquerade to Benin City, Nigeria.

Eseovwe Emakunu and Anita Anoma of Shanty Theatre recently launched a campaign that brought together primary school performers and university audiences for a dance drama performance about climate change. They discuss the creative process and impact of this performance project, which catalyzed action and learning about the impact of climate change and deforestation in Nigeria.

Dan Kpodoh’s The Struggle dramatizes governmental and corporate exploitation in the oil-rich Niger Delta by telling the story of a group of militants who sought liberation but became corrupted by financial interests. Eseovwe Emakunu, a Nigerian theatre professional, interviews Kpodoh about the play’s function as protest theatre against political oppression.

Eseovwe Emakunu and Dennis U. Obire, co-founders of the Shanty Theatre, chronicle their work in the Adagbabiri Community in Bayelsa State, which is one of the most educationally deprived states in Nigeria. Using a theatre for development model, the group worked with local children to create a performance that demonstrated the importance of education in the social development of a community and nation.

In 2021, Nigerian director Josephine Awele Odunze directed a powerful production of Wedlock of the Gods by Zulu Sofola. Odunze sits down with Eseovwe Emakunu to discuss the play’s connections to issues Nigerian women face today, as well as her hopes that theatre can contribute to attaining true gender parity in Nigeria.

Eseovwe Emakunu sits down with theatre practitioner Israel Wekpe to discuss how he and other Nigerian theatre artists use theatre to address racism and discrimination.

Every four years, Catholic seminaries across Nigeria come together for the All Saints Seminary Festival of Arts and Culture, which features theatre rooted in the cultures of Nigeria’s various ethnic groups. Israel Wepke sits down with Eseovwe Emakunu to discuss the process of making theatre with All Saints Seminary, Uhiele.