Prof Femi Osofisan
Professor Femi Osofisan, a playwright, director, actor, critic, poet, novelist, editor and newspaper columnist, has been named winner of the coveted Thalia Prize 2016, the Executive Committee of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC/AICT) has announced.
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The Thalia Prize, according to the statement published via http://aict-iatc.org/, is meant to highlight the work of those who have helped critics around the globe to understand new ways of seeing and appreciating the performing arts worldwide. The 2016 Thalia Prize will soon be presented to the awardee during the IATC Congress in Belgrade.
The IATC, a UNESCO’s statute B partner in theatre criticism has been around for a long time: this year it is celebrating 60 years. But the Thalia Prize is young – only ten years old. Since the prize was created, its laureates have been Eric Bentley (2006), Jean-Pierre Sarrazac (2008), Richard Schechner (2010), Kapila Vatsyayan (2012) and Eugenio Barba (2014).
Osofisan becomes the first African and indeed first black to ever win this highly contested award which is coming shortly after Professor Emmanuel Dandaura became the first Black and first African member of the executive committee of the international association of theatre Critics in 2014.
Femi Osofisan: A Brief Introduction
By Don Rubin
When asked about African theatre, most theatre critics and scholars would be hard-pressed to name more than one or two playwrights beyond the Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian dramatist Wole Soyinka or the anti-apartheid activist Athol Fugard. Both made their reputations in the 1960s and 1970s.
The 2016 winner of the IATC’s prestigious Thalia Prize for contribution to theatre through critical writing, Femi Osofisan, is probably not a name that comes to mind that quickly. But hopefully – with the Thalia – that is about to change.
Osofisan is of the generation that followed those two theatrical giants and his footprint is almost as …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
