John Sibi Okumu is an all-round thespian, a formidable playwright of a wide variety of scripts, such as Role Play - A Journey into the Kenyan Psyche.
A former French student of Sibi Okumu at Braeburn Secondary School, Davina also performed in Sibi’s Role Play as Teresia, the maid.
The Festival is bound to be a multifaceted event, featuring panel discussions, literary readings and debates as well as spoken word and theatrical performances.
John Sibi Okumu may be best known as an actor on stage and screen as well as the former anchor-interviewer of The Summit TV show. But actually, he’s all-round thespian, a formidable playwright of a wide variety of scripts, such as Role Play - A Journey into the Kenyan Psyche, In Search of the Drum Major, Ripples on a Pond, Mister… Karibu, and most recently, Kaggia as well as the director of shows like Eric Wainaina’s award-winning Mo’ Faya and currently, of Davina Leonard’s riveting one-woman production of Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan.
Ms Leonard opened last Saturday night at Alliance Francaise and earned a standing ovation for her formidable performance. This past week she also performed at the Karen Club to another full house, and tonight she’ll again stage her one-woman show at The Tribe Hotel, just next to Village Market.
Ms Leonard is Kenyan-born but went away to Scotland to study Theatre at university. Since her return, she’s co-starred in Silvia Cassini’s Sanaa award-winning play, A Man Like You; an ensemble performance so powerful that it was invited to be staged in the States.
A former French student of Sibi Okumu at Braeburn Secondary School, Davina also performed in Sibi’s Role Play as Teresia, the maid.
This coming week, Davina will take her show upcountry to Nakuru where she again perform Every Brilliant Thing.
Meanwhile, this evening through Sunday, Amar Desai will direct the Aperture Africa production of Ray Cooney’s comedy, It Runs in the Family at Oshwal Centre’s outstanding stage in the Chandaria Auditorium. Starring Pritul Rathatha, Nilofer Abji and Hiren Vara with Sheila Okatch, Bilal Wanjau and Eric Mugenya among others, the show opens tonight at 8pm, with another performance tomorrow at 6pm and on Sunday, Aperture will put on Cooney’s fun-filled farce twice, at 2pm and 6pm.
Aperture Africa has been staging an assortment of productions since 2003, but I only caught up with them in 2016 when the company put on the Jungle Book Musical and was thoroughly impressed. Amar Desai went all out to ensure Jungle Book was one of the most entertaining production of the year, and the Sanaa theatre awards that it won were well deserved.
The following weekend, Jalada, Kenya’s one and only online Pan-African Writers Collective will be launching its first Mobile Literary and Arts Festival at the Goethe Institute on March 3rd from 10am. Before the show gets on the road, it will be on at the Goethe and Kenya National Theatre through March 5 at 10pm.
Described online as ‘a hybrid’ between a convention stationary arts festival and a travelling bus tour, this innovative company of artists, writers and cultural activists will spend the next month traveling around five countries giving 12 performances. According to Jalada’s founder, Moses Kilolo, the festival will take off initially in Kenya, not just in Nairobi but also in Nakuru and Kisumu. Then it will go to Uganda to stage its festivities in Kampala and Kabale. It will also go to Kigale in Rwanda, to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo and to Mwanza, Arusha, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar in Tanzania. The final performance of the Jalada Festival will take place in Mombasa before they return to Nairobi.
The Festival is bound to be a multifaceted event, featuring panel discussions, literary readings and debates as well as spoken word and theatrical performances including the re-staging of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s marvelous short story, The Upright Revolution or Why Humans Walk Upright in a number of African and other languages. In all, Ngugi’s captivating fable has been translated into more than 50 languages and has given Jalada international media attention. All the translations are free to read at Jalada’s website and one will also be able to watch the Festival as it unfolds throughout next month.
Finally, in mid-March the Performance Collective, including Dr Mshai Mwangola-Githongo, Mueni Lundi, and Aghan Odero will follow up last weekend’s interactive literary performance at the Pointzero Coffee House (right next to the Nairobi Gallery and just across the fence from Nyayo House) with a two-month Saturday program dedicated to Women’s history month. Highlighting the works of two outstanding African women writers, Mshai and company are informing everyone in advance that they can start now to read Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter and Taiye Selasis’ Ghana Must Go in preparation for their March 18th program which will begin from 2pm.
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