HAPPY days are here again for theatre lovers in Jos, as the city is set to host the 6th Jos Festival of Theatre. The last edition of the yearly festival held in 2009. This edition holds from February 25 to March 2.Organised by the Jos Repertory Theatre (JRT) since inception in 2005, the festival has grown in importance and significance, taking into consideration the new plays, new writers and new directors that have been thrown up.Due to the state of insecurity in the city, the 2010 and 2011 editions couldn't hold, but JRT continued to stage plays in cities across the country.Since it started, the festival has celebrated more young writers and directors, while confining the old to a little roaming space, in the yearly theatrical fiesta.According to the Festival Director, Patrick-Jude Oteh, the theme of the 2012 festival is The Theatre As A Communal Meeting Place. This theme, he said, was arrived at after the series of conflicts in the city in recent times.'It is hoped that the theatre will provide a platform for discussing some of the issues that plagued the city,' Oteh said.Five plays have been scheduled for the one-week festival. They are Emeka Nwabueze's When The Arrow Rebounds, a stage adaptation of Chinua Achebe's novel, Arrow of God, to be directed by Patrick-Jude Oteh; Lonne Elder Lii's Ceremonies in dark old men, directed by Osasogie Efe Guobadia; Adinoyi Ojo Onukaba's Bargain Hunting by the group from Port Harcourt, Rivers State directed by Dr. Emman Emeasealu; Dipo Agboluaje's For One Night Only ' a migration fantasy directed by Leon Echa and Barrie Stavis' The Man Who Never Died also directed by Oteh.The festival opens on February 25 with dances by Dance Afrique choreographed by Kevin Paradang. The opening revival performance comes after. Nwabueze's When The Arrow Rebounds has been selected to light up the show. This play was earlier performed at the MUSON Festival 2011.On Sunday, February 26, there will be another performance, When The Arrow Rebounds. Monday, February 27 will see Lii's Ceremonies in dark old men go on stage while Tuesday, February 28, is Onukaba's Bargain Hunting. Wednesday, February 29 is Agboluaje's For One Night Only while Thursday, March 1 is Stavis' The Man Who Never Died.Friday, March 2, is the closing ceremonies featuring modern dances and final performance of Stavis' The Man Who Never Died.The festival will feature workshops in Arts Management, Directing, Make-Up and a group from Port Harcourt is offering free Salsa dances and training for the duration of the festival. The workshops will hold during the day while performances come up in the evening from 5pm.Oteh said, 'there would be post performance discussions between the audiences and the cast after each performance. These sessions are expected to help in the on-going discourse on the city of Jos.'He said, 'each of the plays selected by a panel for the festival has its own story ranging from those who freely give their lives for the society to make progress as in Stavis' The Man Who Never Died and those who erroneously believe that the will of one man can subdue that of the community, as we see in Nwabueze's When The Arrow Rebounds. Issues relating to youths would feature prominently in the festival through plays such as Ceremonies in dark old men, Bargain Hunting and For one night only. It is hoped that the festival will provide answers to the raison d'tre why people do the things they do. Above all, the festival would give us the avenue to celebrate our work and ourselves.The festival is featuring two new directors ' Osasogie Efe Guobadia, a final year undergraduate of the National Film Institute and Leon Echa, a Theatre Arts graduate from the University of Jos.This will be their first professional debut at directing and their participation is due to one of the cardinal reasons for the festival ' to nurture and groom new talents for the Nigerian stage.According to Oteh, 'the workshops will provide alternative career prospects for young people and aspiring actors to look deeply into the arts of the theatre as another viable means of work and a further challenge to their talents.'For Oteh, 'the challenges of theatre in Nigeria are definitely not about talent, they have to do mainly with sourcing and looking for funds.'He added, 'I think most of the theatre artistes have shied away from creating formidable marketing department that would rival that of any bank. We might not be able to pay what banks are paying, but the lesson here is that we must be able to create departments that must be able to drive sales for our product and they also must be able to hustle like every other bank is hustling because marketing is not just sitting down and wishing our art is going to speak for us, you can have a good art without good marketing and it is as good as dead, so, what we are going to try to do in the next one or two years is to create a whole new marketing department and their major aim is to drive market sales for our plays and other products that we are having. There will also be a funding department. Its major aim is to get funds from as many offers as possible.'Oteh, who was one of the 2009-2011 Fellows of John Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts, said, 'the challenge is not the challenge of talent, it is that of creating a formidable marketing department and a development office that would be able to drive our product to go beyond what it is right now and we should be able to achieve that in the next two years.'The theatre director said, JRT is committed to creating exciting programmes that would make people come back to the Theatre.The festival is supported by the Embassy of the United States of America, Nigeria while the Alliance Francaise, Jos, is providing logistic support alongside an array of other local supporters and individuals.
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