Ola Rotimi: Amazing facts about The Late Nigerian Playwright

Ola Rotimi: Amazing facts about The Late Nigerian Playwright

Google in celebration  of posthumous 84th birthday of Nigerian scholar, playwright and foremost dramatists, Ola Rotimi,posted a Doodle to honour the enigma who passed on at the age of 62.

Popular among the late playwright works is the book ‘The Gods are not to Blame’ which made a very big impact on Nigerian theatre as it shaped political thought around colonialism,the Nigerian Civil War and postcolonial society.

 Born Emmanuel Gladstone Olawale Rotimi on 13 April, 1938, he was the son of Samuel Enitan and Dorcas Oruene, an Ijaw mother and his father a Yoruba .

He studied in Port Harcourt and Lagos, before travelling to the United States in 1959 to study at the Boston University.

After receiving a B.A. in fine arts in 1963, he attended the Yale School of Drama (M.A., 1966), where he concentrated on playwrighting.

The Google doodle to celebrate Ola Rotimi

Ola Rotimi married Hazel Mae Guadreau for 1965.

Throughout his career, he wrote and directed dozens of plays and short stories that examined Nigeria’s ethnic traditions and history.

Even though he was trained tutored for Western theatrical tradition, he continued to try to break away from it and connected with homegrown theatre practices.

He applied local costumes, geographical settings, song and dance features in all his major productions.

In 60’s,he started teaching at the University of Ife (Obafemi Awolowo University) in Nigeria where he founded the ‘Ori Olokun Acting Company and Port Harcourt’.

Because of the political conditions in Nigeria, Rotimi spent much of the 1990s at the Caribbean and United States, where he teach at the Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Ola Rotimi books and plays

Some of his Popular plays and books include:

‘Plays’ Stir the God of Iron,Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again,The Gods Are Not To Blame,Kurunmi,Grip Am,Invitation into Madness

Books: Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, Akassa You Mi,Holding Talks: A Play

Hopes of the Living Dead – The adventures of Mr.B

Ola Rotimi sadly passed away on 18 August, 2000.