KENYA THEATRE AWARDS SHORTLISTS AWARDS. PUBLIC WILL DECIDE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 1.16.2023) Preparations for the upcoming Kenya Theatre Awards went into high gear last weekend as the judges met in an obscure hideaway in Naivasha for several days. Their task was a daunting one, to first shortlist the 170 productions staged in 2022 by no less than 100 theatre companies. The numbers of productions and theatre troupes jumped so much higher in 2022 than in years past, it almost seemed unbelievable. Yet in 2022, the KTA people kept close track of who was performing what, when, where, and how. Keeping track of the data is an essential reason they feel they can speak with some authority when they give awards to whom they choose on February 23rd at Kenya National Theatre. Yet the jurists are not working alone. “We are encouraging the public to participate in the voting process,” KTA’s CEO Fedari Oyagi tells BDLife. “They can vote online from Monday, January 23rd, he adds. Nonetheless, however transparent and democratic the jurors may sound, it’s still true that all of their deliberations are strictly top secret, and won’t be disclosed until February 23th, the official Kenya Theatre Awards night. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want more public participation in the awarding process,” says Kevin Kimani who besides being Principle Program Officer at Kenya Cultural Centre is the master mind, together with Fedari, behind the Awards. And while neither man is a jurist for the awards, both know the deliberations were not easy. “What made the selection process so challenging was not just the number of plays, musicals, and spoken word shows staged nearly every weekend in 2022, but also the quality of the works,” adds Fedari Oyagi who’s CEO of the KTA Secretariat but not a jurist. “Every juror who agreed to be part of the KTA jury had to commit to seeing all (or as many as possible), of the shows being staged throughout the year,” says Fedari Oyagi, CEO of the Awards Secretariat but not one of the jurors. “And after every show watched, they all had to fill out an online form that spelt out basic elements of the performance that they’d just watched,” he adds. That way, he explains, jurors could refer back to shows they might have seen early in the year but forgot. With the data shared collectively during their retreat, the judges could refer back to prior months so that no production got forgotten. A few shows may have deserved to be forgotten. But on the whole, the judges told BDLife they were pleased with what they had seen in 2022. Compared to what they watched in 2021, the leap from ’21 to ’22 was enormous. For instance, the number of theatre companies that performed in 2022 grew nearly five times. The number of productions staged is even more astonishing. In 2022 there were 170, while in 2021 there had only been 38. Multiple factors affected this difference, including the impact of the COVID lockdown on thespians in ’21. The jurors admit they only saw around 90 percent of the shows in ’22 since more than half were staged in Nairobi, making them more accessible to jurors. But KTA also got wind of shows that were staged in Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru, Lamu, and Eldoret. Fortunately, a few but not all the jurors were able to get around to most of those places. But KTA as an on-going body hopes to find friends of the Theatre who will help support the Awards in future so they can get round the country and inspire even more theatre activity nationwide. “We know there is a lot of interest in performance all over Kenya, and we want to support its development and growth,” Fedari says. One institution that made an immense contribution to the development of quality theatre in Kenya in 2022 was the French government through the French Embassy in Nairobi. “The French government gave technical support to theatre groups in several counties,” Ben Ngobia, Chairman of the Theatre Department at KCA University told BDLife. “That support improved sound and light systems to stages in Nakuru, Kisumu, Mombasa, Lamu, and Nairobi,” he adds. The French not only gave light and sound equipment; they also provided technical training to ensure the maintenance of those systems. The recipients of that support include the Nakuru Players Theatre, Swahili Pot in Mombasa, the Lamu Fort, Kisumu Dung Beach, and Sarakasi Dome. This kind of infrastructural support to Kenyan theatre is invaluable, so we must express our appreciation for it.