The Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) has organised an Akete theatre playwriting contest to document Lagos history and spur creativity among Nigerian youths.
Mr Israel Eboh, National President of NANTAP disclosed this during a press briefing held on Tuesday in Lagos to unveil the seven top shortlisted plays for the competition by the jury.
According to Eboh, there was great need for Lagos history to be documented considering the rate at which it is evolving over time.
He said that this will be done in a way to also build generations of skilled writers as the overall winner of the playwriting contest will have such play published and the play will get into the Literature curriculum of Lagos state.
According to him, the contest was in partnership with the Lagos state government and will henceforth an annual contest.
”Akete theatre competition is a component of the Akete theatre festival, we thought the need to regenerate the total theatre process, playwriting to performance and decided to locate the festival in a city, with the choice of Lagos state.
”We picked Akete because it is peculiar to Lagos state, the competition is meant to document and celebrate the city of Lagos, Lagos is a theatre of its own.
”The competition is the first process of the festival, which will hold in September.
We tried to ensure that the entries we picked for scrutiny dwell on the eccentricity of Lagos, which makes the state unique,” he said.
Eboh noted that tested professionals in the act of acting, directing and producing were carefully selected as members of the Jury.
He listed them as Prof Tunji Azeez, Chairman of the Jury, Dr Adigun Olabisi of Bowen University and Tosan Edremoda-Ugbeye, Veteran Actress, Director and Producer.
He commended the efforts of the jury for paying attention to details in the process of evaluating the plays.
He said that the first three winners will be going away with some prize money, which would not be disclosed yet.
Earlier, Prof Tunji Azeez of Theatre Arts Department, University of Lagos who for revealing the top 7 shortlisted plays.
Azeez said the shortlisted plays were “JJC” written by Ibrahim Abdul-Qudus, “Memoirs of a Bus Conductor” by Emeka Otoba, “Milk, Honey and What’s Not” written by Temilolu Fosudo, “Yellow Dreams” by Paul Ugbede.
He said others were “The Embodiment (Return of Eyo-Adimu)” written by Olusegun Ajayi, “Rebirth” by Adaeze Ibechukwu and “The Salt Water Wars (Ogun Omiiyó)” by James Henshaw.
He noted that out of 56 script entries submitted, they were pruned to 27 and now 7 and the scripts were gotten from Nigerians across the globe.
”I want to commend NANTAP for coming up with this, encouraging the growth of theatre culture, this reveals that the theatre profession has a future and NANTAP is driving that vigorously.
”This is targeted at developing young talents in the theatre profession,” he said
