Wole Oguntokun
Wole Oguntokun is a Nigerian playwright, dramaturge, stage and screen director. He is also a theatre administrator and newspaper columnist. Education. Wole Oguntokun (Full name - Oluwolé Oguntokun) born 15 July 1967, holds a Bachelor of Laws from the Obafemi Awolowo University, as well as Master of Laws (LL.M) and Master of Humanitarian and Refugee Studies degrees, from the University of Lagos. He has been called to the Nigerian Bar. Theatre. Wole was dramaturge and played the lead role of Elesin Oba in Soulpepper Theatre / Stratford Festival's Canadian production of Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's  Horseman in Soulpepper's Around the World in 80 plays project in June 2021. In February 2021, he won the Young-Howze award for Dramatic Writing of the year for his play, The Emancipation of Yankee Oluwale, based on the trial of two English policemen in 1969 for the death of the Nigerian migrant, David Oluwale. Oguntokun directed his company, Renegade Theatre, in its 2019 production of his play, The Chibok Girls: Our Story at the Cross Currents Festival in Washington DC in tandem with the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka's, premiere of his brand new work, "A Humanist's  Ode for Chibok, Leah." He is a 2018 Global Fellow of the New York-based International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA), a Fellowship he was also awarded in 2015 & 2016. He founded and was Artistic Director of the Theatre Republic a Lagos-based performing arts hub opened in September 2016 which provided production and rehearsal spaces for theatre and dance companies, musicians and visual artists while also Artistic Director of Renegade Theatre, a major Nigerian performing arts company. Wole Oguntokun moderated the conversation between Wole Soyinka and the audience at the award of the Europe Theatre Special Prize to  the Nobel Laureate in Rome in December 2017. He wrote and directed the theatrical production of "The Chibok Girls: Our Story" which premiered at the Muson Centre, Lagos, from 18 to 20 December 2015. The performances, partly supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to the Economic Community of West African States, featured three of the school girls who escaped after being abducted by the insurgent group, alongside professional actors including Rotimi Fakunle, Joshua Alabi and Kehinde Bankole. The production was thereafter invited to the 2017 edition of the Ubumuntu Arts Festival  in Kigali, Rwanda where it was performed on the 16th of July. He emerged as a player on the Nigerian Theatre landscape between September and December 1998 with his productions of his satirical stage drama "Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?", a lampoon of the Nigerian military in governance. He has written and directed plays including "Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka" in May 2002; "Rage of the Pentecost" – August 2002; "Ladugba!" – September 2002; and "The Other Side" – November 2002. His other plays include "Piper Piper", his adaptation of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" in March 2003; and "Gbanja Roulette , in May and July 2003. In December 2003, he featured the matriarch of Nigerian drama, Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, in his stage play The Inheritors". His other plays include "Prison Chronicles" in March 2004, "The Other Side" starring Kate Henshaw-Nuttall in November 2005; "The Sound and The Fury" in April 2006; "The Inheritors" featuring Joke Silva in August 2006, and "Anatomy of a Woman" featuring Stella Damasus in March 2007. He has also produced and directed plays by other playwrights including "The Trials of Brother Jero" by Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan's "Once upon Four Robbers", Bode Asiyanbi and Reagan  Payne. In July 2007, Oguntokun initiated a collaboration with the Arts Centre known as Terra Kulture, on Victoria Island, Lagos, and commenced the "Theatre@Terra", becoming its founding producer and artistic director and turning it into one of Nigeria's most consistent venues for Theatre, with plays being produced every Sunday at the venue. Wole has produced and directed plays by many of Nigeria's best-known playwrights including Soyinka's "(Kongi's Harvest", "Madmen & Specialists", "The Lion and the Jewel", "The Swamp Dwellers", "Death and the King's Horseman", "The Strong Breed", "Childe Internationale", "Camwood on the Leaves", "The Jero  Plays"); Osofisan's "Morountodun", "Once Upon Four Robbers", "The Engagement"," The Inspector and the Hero"; Professor Ola Rotimi's "The Gods Are Not To Blame"; Zulu Sofola's "King Emene", "Wedlock of the Gods", "Wizard of Law", as well as Athol Fugard's "Sizwe Banzi is Dead". Oguntokun was official consultant to the British Council/Lagos and the crew of the National Theatre in London for the purpose of that National Theatre's production of Wole Soyinka's play "Death and the King's Horseman" in April and May 2009. Oguntokun headed the writing team that adapted Eve Ensler's  The Vagina Monologues for Nigeria. The result was "V Monologues-The Nigerian Story", which he directed in March 2008 at the National Arts Theatre, Terra Kulture, The Muson Centre (all in Lagos) and at The Women's Development Centre and the Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Centre in Abuja. Oguntokun created the annual "Season of Soyinka" now approaching its 9th Season, in which plays by the Nobel Laureate are presented. Oguntokun directed "A Season in the Congo" by Aimé Césaire for the Lagos State Government / UNESCO-sponsored "Black Heritage Festival" in April 2010; his own play "The Waiting Room" in the same  festival for the 2011 Black Heritage Festival, Marco Martinelli's "Moor Harlequin's 22 Misfortunes" for the 2012 edition of the festival and his play "Oshodi Tapa" for the 2013 edition. "Oshodi Tapa" thereafter became the selected opening play to celebrate Lagos State at 50 years. In the 2015 edition, of the Black Heritage Festival, he was selected to present another of his plays, "The Tarzan Monologues". He was selected as part of a British Council-Theatre Directors' Residency/Workshop in the United Kingdom in May 2011. In August 2011 and 2013, he was one of two Nigerians selected as  a British Council delegates to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. He selected a production, "The Animals and Children took to the Streets" by the British performing arts company, 1927, from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013 and the production was sponsored to Nigeria in November 2011. He directed the Nigerian premiere of Ntozake Shange's multi-award-winning play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf" on 29 and 30 December at the Shell Hall, Muson Centre in Lagos, and on 15 June 2014, at the Eko Convention Centre – Eko Hotel and Suites in  collaboration with Flytime Entertainment. Oguntokun's theatre company, Renegade Theatre, was one of five African theatre companies and the only West African one, selected to be part of the Shakespeare Cultural Olympiad at the Globe Theatre (Globe to Globe Festival) in London in April–June 2012. 37 international touring theatre companies presented each of Shakespeare's 37 plays in a different language. Oguntokun directed "The Winter's Tale in Yoruba" on 24 and 25 May 2012 at the Globe Theatre. On 9 and 10 November 2013, he directed his adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" at the Muson Centre, Lagos , setting it in the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War. Oguntokun produced and directed his play "The Waiting Room" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 1–26 August 2013 making it the first Nigerian play to feature at the festival. In 2014, he returned to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as director and producer of the same Nigerian company (Renegade Theatre) with another production – "The Tarzan Monologues". Venue – Underbelly, Cowgate, from 31 July until 24 August. They were the first Nigerian plays presented at the world's biggest arts festival. He has directed three Muson Festival Plays: "The Gods Are Not To  Blame" (2006), "An Ordinary Legacy" (2012) and his own adaptation of Cyprian Ekwensi's "Jagua Nana" (2014) He is the recipient of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Practitioners' (NANTAP) Award for Excellence (November 2012) and an Arts Patron Award (November 2013)at the Association's annual conventions. Television. Oguntokun independently produced and wrote the TV sit-coms, "Crossworld Blues" on DBN TV (1999) and "Living Free" on MBI television (2002). He also produced the television show on current affairs "The Cutting Edge", which ran on MBI in 2002. He was a producer and Head Writer on Season II of the  Pan-African talk-show "Moments with Mo" and produced briefly on Season IV. Documentary. Oguntokun wrote and produced a documentary on inner-city violence on young females, "The Sounds Of Silence", which was commissioned by the Ajegunle Community Project (ACP) (2009). In March 2007 he commenced "The Girl Whisperer", a weekly column on gender relations in a major Nigerian newspaper, the "Sunday Guardian". The column ran for seven years. He is a member of the Governing Council of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), a leading Arts and Culture Advocacy Group in Nigeria and a director on the board of  Theaturtle, a Canadian Theatre company.