16th Jos Int’l Festival of Theatre 2025 opens May 16 with local, int’l performances
By Editor
THE Jos-based theatre organisation, Jos Repertory Theatre, is set to host the 16th Jos International Festival of Theatre 2025 with the collaboration of US Government Exchange Alumni Association of Nigeria (USGEAAN), Plateau State Chapter. The beloved festival is returning after the outing in the 2022 edition. According to the festival director, Dr. Patrick-Jude Oteh and the Chairman of USGEAAN, Professor Pam Dung Sha, the festival will open on Friday, May 16th and end on Tuesday, May 20th at the expansive premises of the Alliance Francaise, Jos which is opposite J. D. Gomwalk Building at the popular West of Mines, Jos.
Over the last decade, the festival has become a nurturing ground for Nigerian artists to showcase their talents and creativity through a Nigerian and international repertory. The festival is featuring plays from Nigeria, Czech Republic, USA and Norway, and performed by Nigerian actors. The 2025 festival, with the theme ‘Creating Theatre in These Times’, will feature riveting plays as well as a series of artistic meetings and gatherings aimed at resuscitating NANTAP in Plateau State. There will be conversations around arts management to fulfill part of the objectives of one of the supporters of the festival, the DeVos Institute for Arts and Non-Profit Management. Two sets of interns from two Nigerian universities will benefit from this experience.
The 2025 festival plays will present poignant messages concerning migration, marriage, politics, revolt, change and the abuse of power and economic inequalities over the five days’ performances.
Theatre and festival director Dr. Otteh said the theme this year aptly captures the relentless global turmoil plaguing humanity and zeroed it home where theatre practice has become endangered on account of an increasingly emasculated middle class in the country coupled with insecurity that has become a daily fare.
Dr. Jude-Patrick Otteh
“These are very difficult and trying times to create theatre,” he said from his Jos base. “Take the middle class – they constitute the larger number of our individual givers, sponsors, yet a lot of them are going through trying times currently. How do you discuss theatre and theatre funding with such a person? Daylight robbery and kidnapping are very rife. Most patrons will rather stay at home. The general insecurity also certainly affects theatre patronage.”
The festival will also be introducing two directors, Uvie Giwewhegbe (This Was How the Day Ended) and Mark Musa (I Do (Do I?) who are writing and directing their own plays for the festival. While Musa is a veteran of JRT’s training and performances over the last decade while the lady director, Giwewhegbe is making her debut in the festival. Among the other plays that will feature at the 2025 festival are the Czech classic The Protest, written by Vaclav Havel which is a sequel to Audience with which JRT toured Czech Republic in 2022; Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge will also feature in the festival and this is the migration story of two Italian brothers gone sour on love’s wings, and Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts will also feature in the festival as a Pidgin English adaptation retitled Spirit which has been adapted and directed by Osasogie Efe Guobadia, another veteran of JRT training and professional performer. All the plays will be performed in English and Spirit will be recorded and streamed live to an audience in Norway.
The festival has received support from DeVos Institute of Arts and Non-Profit Management, Washington DC, Oluwanifemi Bolatito Foundation, USGEAAN, Plateau State Chapter, Maisie Pearl Fashions, Jos Business School, GrandTowers Limited, Alliance Francaise, Jos and an array of individual supporters.
