Nigeria hosts Africa's first playback theatre festival

Laughter rippled through the hall in Abuja as visitors from different continents leaned forward in anticipation.

On stage, performers transformed ordinary life experiences into spontaneous theatre, drawing smiles, reflection, and sometimes sadness from the audience. 

For one week, Nigeria's capital, Abuja became a meeting point for artists, educators, humanitarians, development practitioners, corporate leaders, and community facilitators united by a common belief: that stories have the power to transform lives.

Tagged "MeetInNigeria," the first-ever Africa Improvisation and Playback Theatre Festival brought participants from across Africa and beyond to Abuja, creating a vibrant space where culture, creativity, and social change intersected.

The cultural festival organised by Access to Creative Play Foundation and the Ensemble Improv Theatre Company was to create space for connection, collaboration and exchange between artists and audiences.

Aside from entertainment, practitioners at the event say theatre can be used for social justice, hence this year’s theme “One story at a time, improvisation for social justice?.

According to the Executive Director of the Access to Creative Play Foundation, Oluwadamilola Abdulai-Apotieri, the foundation has been working with internally displaced persons for the past eleven years using stories as a form of resilience building and psycho-social support.

“So theatre plays major roles even in community development, in human development, so part of improvisation is called applied improvisation where we use theatre as a tool for building communication, patient safety in the field of medicine, so in corporate setting, we do applied improvisation for team building workshop, in medical setting, we do medical improvisation, to building patient safety, build bedside manners for medical practitioners, in prisons, we use improvisation to build resilience," he added.

“Theatre is an incredible source of soft skills for listening, collaboration, and building confidence in everything you do. It is a great way of bringing people together; theatre is a universal language that allows people to laugh and build connections that may not exist,” said Stephanie Ryan, a theatre actress from the US.

The festival highlighted theatre's unique ability to bridge cultural and linguistic divides.

Improvisational Theatre involves unscripted live performances where actors create scenes. Dialogue, music, and movement are often instantly based on audience suggestions.

Founded in 1975 and practiced in more than 70 countries, the show allows audience to share their personal experiences or stories which are re-enacted on stage by the artists.