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BEETA holds playwriting competition awards today

By Dominica Okpara
30 January 2019   |   3:21 am
BEETA Universal Arts Foundation (BUAF) will, today, January 30, 2019, hold the grand finale of its second playwright competition.

Bikiya Graham-Douglas

BEETA Universal Arts Foundation (BUAF) will, today, January 30, 2019, hold the grand finale of its second playwright competition. The event is scheduled for the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos. The award winning actress and producer, Bikiya Graham-Douglas, leads the foundation. Entries received were 348 from playwrights across the country.

The event will start at 12pm.Panel of judges for the prize award includes, journalist and arts critic, Shaibu Husseini; theatre director, Kenneth Uphopho; veteran actress, Ego Boyo; theatre producer and writer, Ayo Jaiyesinmi; publisher and bookseller, Ibiso Graham-Douglas and led by award-winning playwright and jury chairman, Professor Ahmed Yerima. The panel is tasked with selecting the best play from these 10 shortlisted works:

Shehu Zock-Sock (Tick Tock More Talk), Rukee Ejigbo (Mr. Macaroni), Joshua Alabi (Beyond the Wig), Ubonla Adenike (Echoes of the Drum), Abdul-Qudus Ibrahim (Jagagba), Kehinde Ademoye (A Love Like This), Ekpeno Ukut (Room 7), Kelvinmary Ndukwe (Transparent), El Osas Iyalekhue (Shark Boy), and Elias Ozikpu (Queen Akhadze).

The finalists had a training session, facilitated by Yerima, Uphopho and Ibiso Graham-Douglas at MUSON Centre. The winner will take home the N1 million prizes money, a publishing deal with PaperWorth Books Limited as well as having the play produced by BUAF at Terra Kulture Arena. Also, a campus tour to selected universities across the country is form part of the deal for winning the prize.

The competition is sponsored by Union Bank and supported by WAPIC Insurance Plc, NIMASA, Terra Kulture, Olajide & Oyewole LLP, and British Council.

According to the BUAF’s founder, Graham-Douglas, “our first edition was very successful, with the winning play, Our Son the Minister, produced many times across the country. Our winner Paul Ugbede worked with the biggest producers in Nigerian theatre and has also been shortlisted for the African Playwriting competition.

“One of our finalists Soji Cole went on to win The Nigeria Prize for Literature 2018, with his play, Embers. We are excited to unveil the winner of the second Beeta Playwright Competition (BPC) and look forward to exciting times ahead.”

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