By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (30 January 2019)
Long before
Eric Wainaina got involved in setting ‘Tinga Tinga Tales’ to music for the
stage, the ‘Dreams in Stereo’/Daima musician was dreaming musical theatre.
It might
have started while he was singing and acting at St. Mary’s School. The seed could
also have been sown once he joined the a cappella singing group, ‘Five Alive’
in the 1990s. But certainly, once he went to Boston, USA to study song-writing
and record-engineering at the world acclaimed Berklee College of Music, Eric
must have had an inkling that musical theatre was bound to become a path less
travelled that he would eventually traverse.
Proof that
he was destined to be Kenya’s version of a writer and composer like Rogers and
Hammerstein all in one came out in 2009 when his award-winning musical, ‘Mo
Faya’ was staged for record-breaking crowds at the GoDown Art Centre in Nairobi’s
Industrial Area. Then when ‘Mo Faya’ was invited to perform in the New York
Musical Theatre Festival in September 2009, Eric was sold.
In fact, his
starring role as DJ Lwanga in Mo Faya has stuck with him. So much so that he’s
been developing another musical around the DJ ever since. Even now, ‘DJ Lwanga’
was one of the musical scripts that Eric shared during the recent Third NBO Musical
Theatre Initiative Workshop. It was the one (of 15) musical theatre projects
previewed last week that had only one songwriter, lyricist and storyteller,
namely Eric.
Otherwise,
during the Workshop’s finale performance one discovered that Eric is involved
in the original creation of four musicals all at once. There’s DJ Lwanda, the
radio DJ from Kwa Maji in Mo Faya. Then there are three more that he’s working
on with three different teams.
In the
black-brown love story, ‘Pani Puri’ Eric has teamed up with writer Aleya Kassam
and composer-tabla drummer Rashab Nandha.
Then, in ‘Moonlight’,
he is working with Wacuka Mungai to explore a bit of Nairobi’s musical history
by centering their story around the old Starlight Nightclub.
Finally,
Eric has teamed up with Mugambi Nthiga and Stuart Nash to develop the true
story entitled ‘Three-Ten’ about Pastor Dennis who swindled his flock with a
Bible-based scam. ‘Three-Ten’ is a title derived by Dennis from Malachi Chapter
three, verse ten.
All four
musicals are still in the process of becoming but they could be nearly complete
in June when they’ll be showcased again.
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