• Comedy

    Comedy (3)

  • Theatre

    Theatre (4)

  • The Prince and the Slave – A Play

    This historic, award-winning play is set in Wakumey, a kingdom on the West African Coast in the late 18th century. The drama explores the internal tensions and disruptions that rock a community in an era when dealing in live human cargo was the order of the day“How can there be a kingdom without slaves?” is the mantra for King Dogali and his council of elders. However, when romance sneaks in through a most inappropriate quarter, the very centre of royal power comes face-to-face with the visceral effects of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
    The Prince and the Slave reveals not only the inner workings of the practice but also the psychology of both the slave raider and the enslaved.
    The Prince and the Slave has been performed at Accra, Cape Coast, Kumasi and a few universities and secondary schools across Ghana.
  • The Son of Umbele: A Play in Three Acts

    “…the contents of the play revealed a brilliant mind at work in an attempt to deal with some basic ambiguities of human existence,” wrote Julius S. Scott Jnr. of Spelma College-Atlanta, when he saw an American production of The Son of Umbele.

    Indeed, this Ghana National Book Award winner has endeared itself to theatre enthusiasts as well as scholars since its premier at the Ghana Drama studio in 1972.

    Bill Marshall’s sensitivity to realities of the human existence and the conflicts of the mind is eloquently manifest in his writing, be it a novel, a TV Drama or a Stage play.

    The author appeared on the Ghanaian Arts scene in 1966 when he joined GBC-TV and helped to establish the Drama Department of the Television Station. He worked with the Corporation for several years, writing, production and directing plays for Television, He subsequently left for the private sector, working for Lintas Ghana Limited and in his own company, Studio Africain. In 1984, he was appointed the Director of the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) in Ghana.

    Other published works by the author are Novels: Bukom, Brother Man, The Oyster Man, Uncle Blanko’s Chair; Plays: Shadows of an Eagle, Stranger to Innocence Asana, The Crows and Other plays.

  • The Black Hermit (African Writers Series, AWS51)

    In this play, Remi, the first of his tribe to go to university, ponders whether or not he should return to his people. Or should he continue to be a black hermit in the town? Amidst the backdrop of a politically torn country, Remi himself is torn between his sense of tribalism and nationalism. This struggle runs deep, as he finds it at the heart of his afflictions between himself, his marriage and familial relations, and his greater sense of obligations to his people and the country. The overwhelming nature of these problems drives him into isolation as a black hermit. His self-imposed exile into the city leads him to find contentment in the Jane, his new lover, and nightly clubbing. However, after he is lobbied to return to the tribe, he must now confront the demons of his past.

    The Black Hermit was the first published East African play in English. The play was published in a small edition by Makerere University Press in 1963, and republished in Heinemann’s African Writers Series in 1968.

  • The Importance of Being Earnest & Other Plays (Macmillan Popular Classics)

    Around the World in Eighty Days, one of his most popular books, was first serialized in late 1872 in a French newspaper. An instant success, the novel details the round-the-world adventures of the affluent Englishman Phileas Fogg who, accompanied by his French valet Passepartout, sets out on an impossible journey for a wager of £20,000. This groundbreaking novel has since been adapted numerous times for the theatre, television, radio and cinema.

  • The Marriage of Anansewa – A Play

    Anansewa: As for some old chief with fifty wives, that won’t do at all.

    Ananse (with cunning): Supposing it isn’t some old chief but the finely built, glowing black, large-eyed, handsome as anything, courageous and famous Chief-Who-is-Chief?

    Ananse the cunning spider man is the hero of countless Ghanaian legends. But this Ananse gets entangled in his own web of deceit when his scheme to get rick quick backfires, and disaster stares him in the face. The only way out is for his daughter to die…

    Efua T. Sutherland did a great deal to encourage the theatre in Ghana. She began the Ghana Experimental Theatre and the Ghana Drama Studio, and wrote many plays for adults and children, including Edufa.

  • African Dance in Ghana: Contemporary Transformations

    In African Dance in Ghana: Contemporary Transformations, Professor Francis Nii-Yartey tells the story of the development of dance – both traditional and contemporary – since Ghana’s independence. The book charts the people and events that influenced new forms of dance and their impact on art, culture and national identity. The dances that emerge combine centuries-old tradition with a yearning for original expression and innovation.

    Nii-Yartey is uniquely equipped to tell the story, having been directly involved through his directorship of the Department of Dance at the University of Ghana and his involvement in establishing the Ghana Dance Ensemble and the Noyam African Dance Institute.

    The second part of the book gives detailed choreographic instructions for 18 dance pieces, most of which were written, choreographed and directed by the author. They form an invaluable legacy to his career.

  • Obeede (Akuapem Twi)

    “Obeede” is an imaginary story based on the traditions, culture, customs, and the mode of the life of the Akan people.

    The book reveals the thoughts, beliefs, and superstitions of the Akan people in connection with their gods and life in the unseen world of our past ancestors.

    The “hero” (Kwabena Boakye) who was later known as “Obeede” represents the Akan “Ntorɔ” or “Bogya” a hunter, mysteriously fell into a deep coma and found himself in the unseen world. After many horrid experiences and adventures in that unseen world, he was later roused from his coma.

    The story is written in a beautiful language with rare words used in catchy phrases and idiomatic expressions

  • A Play of Giants

    Described by the author as a ‘Fantasia on Aminian theme’, Wole Soyinka’s new play presents a savage portrait of a group of dictatorial African leaders at bay in an embassy in New York. The resemblance between them and recent historical characters is only too pronounced.

  • Hlɔbiabia (Ewe)

    Hlɔbiabia (Vengeance) is a story of a body who suffered a great deal of injustice in the hands of many people including his own teachers and close friends. Torments he suffered made him vow to repay mankind in the same way he had been treated.

    By paying people in their own coins, he managed to go overseas where he obtained many degrees. Later, however, when he returned home, he rendered good service to people and in addition confessed every wrong he had done and pleaded with the bench for a fitting punishment as an atonement for his sins.

  • Shakespeare’s Hamlet

    This edition is unabridged and suitable for SHS level. Comes with notes and important questions and answers.

    One of the greatest plays of all time, the compelling tragedy of the tormented young prince of Denmark continues to capture the imaginations of modern audiences worldwide. Confronted with evidence that his uncle murdered his father, and with his mother’s infidelity, Hamlet must find a means of reconciling his longing for oblivion with his duty as avenger. The ghost, Hamlet’s feigned madness, Ophelia’s death and burial, the play within a play, the “closet scene” in which Hamlet accuses his mother of complicity in murder, and breathtaking swordplay are just some of the elements that make Hamlet an enduring masterpiece of the theater.

  • The Legend of Aku Sika – A Play

    Nanayere Ama accuses her husband the King of disrespecting her, his ancestral throne and the gods, because he plans to marry Aku, a maiden who is short of a limb. The King denies this allegation of deformity in Aku, and so he is asked to summon the young women before the townsfolk to reveal her arm. He will be dethroned in disgrace if it is true and Nanayere will lose her life if Aku is not deformed.

     

  • Stranger to Innocence – A Play

    Stranger to Innocence is an intriguing short play, which treats the daily motions, frustrations, joys and aspirations of an African priestly family. This is the house where a stranger, Tawa, who has been fleeing from his own sins, seeks to find refuge. In the end, lessons of remorse and forgiveness are yet to be fully understood especially by young minds like Alaba, daughter of the priest.

    The play exhibits the author’s artistic simplicity in the use of dramatic language, which has endeared this play to wide theatre audiences.

    It is not surprising that it is popular among many drama groups and schools in the country.

    Stranger to Innocence is one of Bill Marshall’s early plays, from which a lot of inspiration is drawn.

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