Visiting Experts: Onyeka Iwuchukwu
An open lecture by Nigerian playwright and one of Theatre Academy’s visiting professors in 2024.
The Show Must Go On.
Playwriting is a genre of literature that is expected to be realised in performance. Most renowned playwrights in Nigeria are lecturers or started as lecturers in the universities where they feature their colleagues and students in the performance of their plays. Most of these universities have departments of theatre, creative, or performing arts. The lecturers therefore recommend their published plays as texts for their students – who also produce some of the plays as members of cast and crew – as class projects or simply for the university community. The students also help to promote their lecturers’ plays to an audience especially after graduation. How then would a playwright function in a university that does not have such departments? This is the focus of Iwuchukwu’ upcoming lecture.
Short biography
Onyekachukwu Francisca Iwuchukwu is passionate about playwriting and production. She therefore tries to realise this passion wherever she finds herself insisting that “the show must go on” irrespective of all odds. She also ventures into dance. She has an avid interest in promoting information on literacy, women education, empowerment, justice and equity in the society. These are reflected from various perspectives in her plays.
Iwuchukwu has worked as a lecturer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University and National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), gaining over twenty years experience in active (off/online) teaching, writing instructional materials, developing and recording instructional videos, as well as working and engaging with faculty and students towards promoting student success and learning outcomes. Currently, she is the Director of Calabar Study Centre, a position that has afforded her the opportunity to exhibit an innate unique passion for serving the needs of people around her, especially the underrepresented, underserved students and students from different socio-economic backgrounds.
Onyeka Iwuchukwu continues writing and producing plays in unconventional ways, hence her ability to establish NOUN Theatre to sustain theatre culture in a university without barrier; a university without a creative/performing arts department; a university without on-campus interaction between staff and students; and a university where a student learns at his/her place and at his/her pace. One of her plays, Our Honourable Member was read at the 9th Women Playwrights International Conference Theatre Sodetra, Riksteatern, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2012. The same play had an honourable mention at The 40th AnnualAfrica Literature Association (ALA) Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa in 2014. Iwuchukwu is a prolific playwright with eight published plays and many performed but unpublished manuscripts. Professor Iwuchukwu was a visiting scholar at Ohio State University, USA and her feminist perspective is articulated in her Focu-feminism theory.
Read also Iwuchukwu’s interview.
The open lecture is part of the Visiting Experts series where international experts in the arts and sciences, invited by the Theatre Academy, share their knowledge.
Onyeka’s plays
Onyeka’s plays that the Theatre Academy has:
Sons for my Son (first published 1990, Onyeka’s first play)
Into the World (first published 1992)
Like Father Like Son (first published 1994)
Regal Dance (first published 1994)
Whose fault (first published 1994)
Enough is Enough (first published 2014)
Choices (first published 2014)
Our Honorable Member (first published 2014)
The Show Must Go On.
Playwriting is a genre of literature that is expected to be realised in performance. Most renowned playwrights in Nigeria are lecturers or started as lecturers in the universities where they feature their colleagues and students in the performance of their plays. Most of these universities have departments of theatre, creative, or performing arts. The lecturers therefore recommend their published plays as texts for their students – who also produce some of the plays as members of cast and crew – as class projects or simply for the university community. The students also help to promote their lecturers’ plays to an audience especially after graduation. How then would a playwright function in a university that does not have such departments? This is the focus of Iwuchukwu’ upcoming lecture.
Short biography
Onyekachukwu Francisca Iwuchukwu is passionate about playwriting and production. She therefore tries to realise this passion wherever she finds herself insisting that “the show must go on” irrespective of all odds. She also ventures into dance. She has an avid interest in promoting information on literacy, women education, empowerment, justice and equity in the society. These are reflected from various perspectives in her plays.
Iwuchukwu has worked as a lecturer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University and National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), gaining over twenty years experience in active (off/online) teaching, writing instructional materials, developing and recording instructional videos, as well as working and engaging with faculty and students towards promoting student success and learning outcomes. Currently, she is the Director of Calabar Study Centre, a position that has afforded her the opportunity to exhibit an innate unique passion for serving the needs of people around her, especially the underrepresented, underserved students and students from different socio-economic backgrounds.
Onyeka Iwuchukwu continues writing and producing plays in unconventional ways, hence her ability to establish NOUN Theatre to sustain theatre culture in a university without barrier; a university without a creative/performing arts department; a university without on-campus interaction between staff and students; and a university where a student learns at his/her place and at his/her pace. One of her plays, Our Honourable Member was read at the 9th Women Playwrights International Conference Theatre Sodetra, Riksteatern, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2012. The same play had an honourable mention at The 40th AnnualAfrica Literature Association (ALA) Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa in 2014. Iwuchukwu is a prolific playwright with eight published plays and many performed but unpublished manuscripts. Professor Iwuchukwu was a visiting scholar at Ohio State University, USA and her feminist perspective is articulated in her Focu-feminism theory.
Read also Iwuchukwu’s interview.
The open lecture is part of the Visiting Experts series where international experts in the arts and sciences, invited by the Theatre Academy, share their knowledge.
Onyeka’s plays
Onyeka’s plays that the Theatre Academy has:
Sons for my Son (first published 1990, Onyeka’s first play)
Into the World (first published 1992)
Like Father Like Son (first published 1994)
Regal Dance (first published 1994)
Whose fault (first published 1994)
Enough is Enough (first published 2014)
Choices (first published 2014)
Our Honorable Member (first published 2014)