Ola Rotimi: Fun facts about Nigerian playwright , His Works And Educational Influence.

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Ola Rotimi was popular among all his playwright works and books which he has written even after his death, his book, “The Gods Are Not To Blame“.

His impact in the Nigerian theater as director that has shaped the political thought around colonialism during the Nigerian Civil War and also the post colonial society.

Who is Ola Rotimi?

Ola Rotimi was born as Emmanuel Gladstone Olawale Rotimi in the month of 13 April, 1938.

He was the son of Samuel Enitan and Dorcas Oruene, and Ijaw mother and a Yoruba father. He studied at Port Harcourt and Lagos before he made a move in traveling out of Nigeria to the United States to further his studies in 1959 at Boston University.

After he bagged a B.A in Fine Art for 1963 , he attended Yale School of Drama (M.A. 1966), where he was fully into playwriting.

Ola Rotimi got married to Hazel Mae Guadreau in 1965.

Throughout his career, He has written and directed dozens of plays and short stories that have in many ways examined Nigeria ethnic tradition and history.

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Even though he trained mostly in Western Theatrical Tradition, he continued to try and break away from the Western and connect more in his home grown theatrical practices.

He later applied to feature in local costumes, geographical location settings, songs and dance and featured well in major play and movie productions.

In the 1960s, he started to teach in the University of Ife (which was later renamed Obafemi Awolowo University) in Nigeria where he founded Ori Olokun Acting Company and Port Harcourt.

For the sake of the political condition of Nigeria, Rotimi spent much of his 1990s in the Caribbean a d United States where he taught in Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.