This is part of Afridiziak Theatre News’ series of interviews with Artistic Directors.
“Coming Home is a brand-new season of theatre and projects that tells the stories of what we are, and what we are becoming. Telling stories about of all our tomorrows. tf ‘Coming Home’ is an invitation to artists, audiences, and communities to find the places in our art, in our work, and in theatre that feel like home. Whether that is through joy or grief, through words or physically, everyone deserves a sense of home – a place where we can be our truest self. We will interrogate what it is to have a home, and what it takes to create new spaces to grow in. We will put stories by artists in their deserved spaces, and with a new cohort of Artist Associates and Creative Associates we continue to build spaces where artists and meet, talk and pause together.”
About Chinonyerem – Artistic Director /CEO
Chinonyerem Odimba is an award-winning British Nigerian playwright, screenwriter, and poet. Her work for theatre includes The Bird Woman of Lewisham at the Arcola; Rainy Season, and His Name is Ishmael for Bristol Old Vic; Joanne for Clean Break, and Amongst the Reeds for Clean Break and The Yard. More recent work ranges from Medea at Bristol Old Vic, We Too, Are Giants for Kiln Theatre, Unknown Rivers at Hampstead Theatre, Prince and the Pauper at Watermill Theatre, and The Seven Ages of Patience at Kiln Theatre, and Princess & The Hustler’ which toured across the UK for Eclipse Theatre/Bristol Old Vic/Hull Truck.
More recently she has written AI for Young Vic Theatre, London, 2 new plays for the Faith project as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company commissions for Coventry City of Culture and The Place at the Bridge for Shakespeare At Tobacco Factory.
Her work has been shortlisted for several awards including the Adrienne Benham and Alfred Fagon awards. In 2022, she won the Writers’ Guild Awards for Best Musical Theatre Bookwriting for Black Love and was nominated for The Prince and the Pauper. In 2015 her unproduced play Wild is De Wind was shortlisted to the final ten for the Bruntwood Playwriting Award. She is the winner for the 2018 Sonia Friedman Award (Channel 4 Playwright Bursary) for a new play How to Walk on the Moon. For Radio, credits include The Last flag, and Eve as part of This Is Your Country, Now series on BBC Radio 4.
As a director, Chinonyerem has worked for Bristol Old Vic, Theatre503 and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She co-directed the 2021 tour of Black Love for Paines Plough touring eight venues nationally, as well as an audio drama for Live Theatre/BBC Radio 4 in March 2021. Chinonyerem also directed a new play by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm for HighTide Theatre in February 2022. In March 2022, she directed a revival of Black Love at Kiln Theatre, London with a run of 3 weeks to rave reviews.
About tiata fahodzi
tiata fahodzi, the UK’s leading British African heritage contemporary theatre company, their new new ‘Coming Home’ season of theatre including a major tour of a new production is in full swing; it welcomes a new wave of six artists and creative associates to the tiata fahodzi family; and commissions a new Triple Bill of explosive short plays showcasing theatre’s most exciting new voices, all slated for autumn 2023/Spring 2024.
