Impressed by the turn out of children at the inaugural National Troupe of Nigeria Creative Station project, the management of the troupe has assured that the exercise will be held on a regular basis as a way of developing the imaginative skills of children.

The exercise according to the Acting Artistic Director of the Troupe Mr. Martin Adaji was inaugurated in August-at the start of the current summer break in line with the Troupe’s objective of encouraging the development of Children Theatre and primarily, as a way of engaging the children creatively during their long holiday.

Coordinated by the Director in charge of drama Ms Josephine Igberease, the Creative Station exercise which is currently on-going and will end in mid-September is also designed to prepare the children for a future career in the theatre by exposing them to storytelling, singing, dancing, acting, voice training, puppetry, creative writing, pantomime and improvisational skills.

Speaking on the exercise, Mr. Adaji who was last Saturday honoured at the University of Ibadan by the Association of Theatre Arts Students (ATAS) of the University of Ibadan explained that the maiden edition of the programme which kicked off on August 2 and for children between the ages of 6 and 16 was the troupe’s own intervention in terms of productively engaging the children creatively during the long holiday.

‘We believe that by engaging them creatively, they will not only take their minds off certain known vices during the long holiday but they will be able to polish their individual creative talents’ he said. While expressing satisfaction with the conduct of the exercise, Adaji remarked that the Troupe had to engage experts in different areas of the theatre to complement the effort of the in-house professionals.

‘I am satisfied with the quality of instructions and we will test their good works with a wrap up production titled Colours of the Rainbow which we have fixed for August 29. We shall after the production formally inaugurate our children’s theatre unit’ he said.

Meanwhile the National Troupe is collaborating with Friends of the lawyer, playwright, Poet and activist Fred Agbeyegbe to commemorate his 75th birthday anniversary with a play production titled My Grandfather Ghost’. The play was written by Agbeyegbe and was read during one of the National Troupe’s earlier play reading sessions.  Already auditions have been concluded on the play to be directed by the poet, producer, playwright and theatre director Jide Ogungbade.

On plans for the staging of Nigeria’s 50th anniversary production which he announced on assumption of office in January 2010, Adaji disclosed that the troupe may drop its plan to re-enact  Wale Ogunyemi’s Langbodo and instead settle for a production to be decided by the Central Working Committee of  Nigeria at 50. ‘I am in touch with the relevant desk at the Federal Ministry of Culture and once we get a firm directive we will begin work on the production.

There is no need of working at cross purposes since we are working towards the same target. And as the apex performing arts institution, our duty is to advice government on the play to be performed and help in the packaging of a befitting production for Nigeria at 50’ he said.

However, the National Troupe according to the Artistic Director will ‘outside the national programme of commemoration and  depending on the availability of funds stage an all month musical to also commemorate the feat that Nigeria has attained’. This as he also said is in line with his determination to resuscitate the music arm of the National Troupe.

In a related development, the National Troupe has moved forward its planned tour to Canada and the United States to November and December 2010. The tour was postponed because of the delay in the release of funds and a request by the sponsors for more time to properly plan the tour. But the Troupe announced that it will honour an invitational to Thailand and to Egypt for the Experimental Theatre Festival in October.