Bola Agbaje

Bola Agbaje (born c. 1981) is an award-winning British playwright of Nigerian origin, who is under commission with Paines Plough and Tiata Fahodzi.

Biography

Agbaje was born in London. She briefly lived in Nigeria from the age of six to eight but now lives in Greenwich. She has a degree in media communications and was formerly an actress.^[1]

Her first play, Gone Too Far!, premièred at the Royal Court Theatre in London in February 2007 and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliated Theatre (2008). Due to the play's success it was revived at a number of theatres in 2008: the Royal Court Theatre, Albany Theatre and Hackney Empire.^[2] She adapted Gone too Far into a film script with development funding from the UK Film Council for a film of the same title.^[3]

In July 2008 her second play opened the Tiata Delights season at the Almeida Theatre. She was nominated for the 2008 Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award For Most Promising Playwright. This, however, went to Tarell Alvin McCraney. In 2009 Agbaje was commissioned by the Tricycle Theatre alongside Roy Williams and Kwame Kwei-Armah to be a part of the "Not Black and White" season. Her play Detaining Justice opened on 25 November 2009 and the show sold out.

Agbaje's second play for the Royal Court Theatre, Off the Endz, opened on 19 February 2010, directed by Jeremy Herrin. In 2013 she was commissioned by StoneCrabs Theatre Company to write The Burial, directed by Franko Figueiredo and co-produced by the Albany.^[4]

Her play Take a Deep Breath and Breathe, a loose adaptation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, opened at the Ovalhouse Theatre in 2013 and transferred to the CLF Art Cafe in Peckham, running there from 13 to 31 August 2013.

References