Directors and collaborators assess and comment on the production of plays by West Africa's Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and East Africa's most influential author Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Directors and collaborators assess and comment on the production of plays by West Africa's Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and East Africa's most influential author Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Wole Soyinka and Ngugi wa Thiong'o are the pre-eminent playwrights of West and East Africa respectively and their work has been hugely influential across the continent. This volume features directors' experiences of recent productions of their plays, the voices of actors and collaborators who have worked with the playwrights, and also provides a digest of their theatrical output. Contributors provide new readings of Ngugi and Soyinka's classic texts, and astimulating new approach for students of English, Theatre and African studies.

The playscript for this volume is a previously unpublished radio play by Wole Soyinka entitledA Rain of Stones, first broadcast onBBC Radio 4 in 2002.

Volume Editors: MARTIN BANHAM & FEMI OSOFISAN Guest Editor: KIMANI NJOGU

Series Editors: Martin Banham, Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theatre Studies, University of Leeds; James Gibbs,Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the West of England; Femi Osofisan, Professor of Drama at the University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds; Yvette Hutchison, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick

Editors' Introduction - Martin Banham and Femi Osofisan and James Gibbs
Reading & performing African drama: how Wole Soyinka & Ngugi wa Thiong'o influenced my work - David Kerr
Ayan contra Ujamaa: Soyinka & Ngugi as theatre theorists - Biodun Jeyifo
ENCOUNTERS WITH SOYINKA: I Working with Wole Soyinka - Tunji Oyelana and Sola Adeyemi
II The difficulties of a neophyte staging Wole Soyinka'sThe Beatification of Area Boy - Tunde Onikoyi
III Pentecostalizing Soyinka'sThe Trials of Brother Jero - Bisi Adigun
IVThe Lion & the Jewel in Mombasa - Silviah Namussasi
ENCOUNTERS WITH NGUGI: I Choru wa Muiruri: reflections on the Kamiriithu Experience - Mugo Muhia
II ProducingI Will Marry When I Want in South Africa - Fredrick Mbogo
III Ngugi wa Thiong'o: the unrecognized Black Hermit - Oby Obyerodhyambo
IV Kamiriithu in retrospect - Gichingiri Ndigirigi
Wole Soyinka & Ngugi wa Thiong'o: plays in production - James Gibbs and Mugo Muhia
The making ofThe Trial of Dedan Kimathiby Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Micere Githae Mugo at the University of California, Irvine: a personal reflection - Ketu H. Katrak
Playscript:A Rain of Stones. A previously unpublished radio play by Wole Soyinka - Wole Soyinka
Book Reviews