Sola Osofisan
08-30-2009, 11:59 PM
By Toyin Akinoso
THE playwrights Femi Osofisan and Akinwunmi Ishola are adapting Daniel Fagunwa's classic Yoruba novel, Ireke Onibudo, into drama in English and Yoruba respectively. The work is expected to be delivered on stage, sometime in October. Two separate camps of cast and crew are rehearsing the plays in two locations in the southwest of the country. Ireke Onibudo is the second of five Fagunwa novels that are to be dramatized in the course of the Chams Theatre Series, an initiative of the Nigerian IT company Chams Plc. In 2008, Osofisan was appointed as consultant to advise and deliver the company's vision of contributing to the growth of Nigerian theatre, as a Corporate Social Responsibility. "The Chams Theatre Series is a strategic intervention and contribution of Chams Plc to re-awaken the stage culture in Nigeria", according to a statement on the company's website. The series launched in October 2008 with the most popular of Fagunwa's works: Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irumole. In four venues in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja and Ile Ife, Osofisan's English and Ishola's adaptations of Ogboju Ode were performed to invited audiences, mostly from the business sector. "It is a means of promoting our culture and re-orientating Nigerians on the values we cherish," the company explains. "As we know, theatre and other forms of the arts have always played critical roles in the traditional society and in modern times."
Compiled by staff of Festac News Agency
Guardian (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/arts/article04//indexn3_html?pdate=300809&ptitle=ARTSVILLE&cpdate=300809)
THE playwrights Femi Osofisan and Akinwunmi Ishola are adapting Daniel Fagunwa's classic Yoruba novel, Ireke Onibudo, into drama in English and Yoruba respectively. The work is expected to be delivered on stage, sometime in October. Two separate camps of cast and crew are rehearsing the plays in two locations in the southwest of the country. Ireke Onibudo is the second of five Fagunwa novels that are to be dramatized in the course of the Chams Theatre Series, an initiative of the Nigerian IT company Chams Plc. In 2008, Osofisan was appointed as consultant to advise and deliver the company's vision of contributing to the growth of Nigerian theatre, as a Corporate Social Responsibility. "The Chams Theatre Series is a strategic intervention and contribution of Chams Plc to re-awaken the stage culture in Nigeria", according to a statement on the company's website. The series launched in October 2008 with the most popular of Fagunwa's works: Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irumole. In four venues in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja and Ile Ife, Osofisan's English and Ishola's adaptations of Ogboju Ode were performed to invited audiences, mostly from the business sector. "It is a means of promoting our culture and re-orientating Nigerians on the values we cherish," the company explains. "As we know, theatre and other forms of the arts have always played critical roles in the traditional society and in modern times."
Compiled by staff of Festac News Agency
Guardian (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/arts/article04//indexn3_html?pdate=300809&ptitle=ARTSVILLE&cpdate=300809)