By Dami Ajayi
The Crown Troupe of Africa is a theatre wonder. One of the longest serving private theatre companies in Nigeria, Crown Troupe has been around for eighteen years and is not showing any signs of fatigue; instead it maintains a constant flux of young people who are better of participating in a creative enterprise.
Heavily politically motivated and socio-culturally influenced, Crown Troupe specializes in a form of guerrilla theatre where the art of improvising is their habitual innovation. Dance, drama, poetic recitals, comedy sketches are various forms of performance through which the Nigerian society is interrogated, appraised and eulogised. Behind its success is a faithful obsession of a humorous recreation of our realities and rigorous rehearsals that hold in Bariga, a rowdy working class Lagos Neighbourhood.
Under the directorship of Segun Adefila, a Theatre Arts graduate popular for his acting roles in two Mainframe Home video film productions namely Campus Queen and Arugba, Crown Troupe has performed several materials by other artists; plays like Chinweizu’s The Divorce of Lawino and Zainabu Jallo’s Onion Make Us Cry have acted to a full audience at artsy venues like Bogobiri House and the Freedom Park at Ikoyi and Broad Street respectively. Also to their credit was the popular Yoruba epic, Yoruba Ronu, written by Hubert Ogunde, which they re-enacted to film.
Check them out www.crowntroupeofafrica.com
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