By Christine Onwuachumba
Award winning actress, Bikiya Graham-Douglas, has been selected among Africa’s talented and biggest thespians performing at the Cape Town Fringe Festival, which began yesterday and ending on October 8, 2016.
The actress is taking part in the critically acclaimed piece, WAIT, written by Dipo Agboluaje, directed by Kenneth Uphopho and produced by Beeta Universal Arts Foundation.
WAIT made its debut at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Dublin, Ireland as part of the Africa Day Conference 2015, and was also showcased at this year’s British Council Lagos Theatre Festival. The play highlights the strength of the African woman as she challenges a system that forces her into early marriage and tries to deny her education because she is a woman.
“I’m thrilled ‘WAIT’ has been selected. Girls should be allowed to be girls, their innocence should not be stolen by forcing them into early marriage, and every woman has a right to be educated. The message of ‘WAIT’ is important and I’m honoured to lend my voice to the cause,” she said.
Graham-Douglas has stayed true to her core of promoting theatre arts in Nigeria and has become one of the nation’s sought after stage performers. She has starred in and produced a number of stage shows and movies including For Colored Girls, Surulere, Flower Girl, The Vagina Monologues, Iya-Ile, Lunch Time Heroes, and Shuga. She is also in Jenifa’s Diary season 6.