NEW KENYA MUSICALS COMING SOON

Roberta Levitow With Wanjiku Mwawuganga & The LAM Sisterhood - Laura, Aleya & Anne Pic By Margaretta

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted March 7, 2021 to DNLife)

The Nairobi Musical Theatre Initiative came into being in 2016, promising to be one of the most exciting, innovative, and ambitious performing arts projects in Kenya’s cultural history.

An idea that had been percolating for some time in the fertile mind of one of Kenya’s most acclaimed musician-composer, Eric Wainaina, the Initiative has grown exponentially over the past five years.

Yet just like every other performing arts project, NBO MTI has had to adapt and adjust its master plan in light of the corona virus pandemic. Otherwise, all 11 original musicals were meant to premiere this past year in a festival the likes of which would have dazzled and delighted a whole new generation of theatre-goers.

Eric had roused wide-ranging interest in musical theatre in the past, first when he staged ‘DJ Lwanda’ back at the turn of the millennium , followed by his award-winning ‘Mo Faya’, and finally, his internationally acclaimed ‘Tinga Tinga Tales.’

But what got him thinking more broadly about an NBO musical theatre initiative began in one respect at a Sundance Institute Theatre Lab that he attended with fellow East Africans back in 2005. That is where he met dramaturg Roberta Levitow. Ms. Levitow’s job was to assist all the artists in the Lab to re-strategize their particular text, be it a play, musical, extended poem or embryonic idea.

“It was the process that she used to help the writer deepen his approach and develop his work, that appealed to Eric,” says Karishma Bhagani, the Initiative’s Associate Producing Director.

Eric’s first project that he had with Roberta was re-working his DJ Lwanda. But they stayed in touch, and he even spent some time as an artist-in-residence at the Sundance Institute in Utah, USA.

Eric Wainaina in rehearsal at Brookhouse for the NBO Musical Theatre Initiative - Pic By Margaretta

Those days were catalytic, no doubt. They spurred Eric and his wife Sheba Hirst to bring together a range of local musicians, thespians, and writers, to create a diversity of original Kenya musical theatre works.

The whole concept was radical, as the artists were being challenged to come up with not just original storylines but also musical scores and credible characters. What was marvelous was seeing how 11 different ideas began to germinate. But to propel the process forward, Eric and Sheba invited Roberta to come share her dramaturgic process of developing a musical theatre production with them.

Subsequently, two more senior professors from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Fred Carl and Deborah Brevoort, came to Kenya, in June 2018 to also share their skills in the actual writing of musical theatre.

And since then, the 11 musicals have evolved, each at its own pace, but spurred on by the momentum and inspiration of the group. Just a few months before the pandemic hit, NBO MTI was invited to send four of their best musicals to perform at the Kampala International Theatre Festival.

“They were invited for an ‘In Process’ reading of their musicals,” says Karishma, not the full productions.

“The four readings were from ‘Pani Puri’, ‘Kabaseke’, ‘The Gospel of Apostle Dennis’, and ‘Weaver Bird’,” she adds.

Explaining that the feedback the Kenyans received in Kampala was most beneficial, especially as no one had imagined a pandemic, only the production premiering late in 2020.

Needless to say, this past year has been rough on the Initiative, given the difficulty with conducting rehearsals, what with the lockdowns, social distancing, and early curfews.

But the current short-term solution has been the evolution of radio plays and a brand new NBO MTI podcast entitled ‘Backstage’ which is being curated by Wanjiku Mwawuganga, the team’s Associate Artistic Director. It was just launched on February 19th.

“The first episode is by Eric and it’s entitled ‘Product vs. Process,” says Karishma. “And the second is by [poet and storyteller] Aleya Kassam who’s developing both Pani Puri and Weaverbird.”

Details about how to find the podcasts, and how to learn more about NBO MTI’s radio plays are on their new website, www.NBO MTI.org, Karishma explains.

Having been a student at NYU at the Tisch School at the time as Eric was in New York with ‘Tinga Tinga Tales’, she met Eric after attending his concert and workshop on his latest version of ‘DJ Lwanda’.

“He was performing for graduate students in a musical theatre program, and after his concert, I went up and introduced myself in Kiswahili,” says Karishma who is originally from Mombasa. They became fast friends and has been working with NBOMTI ever since.