Introduction
Wale Ogunyemi, OFR (12 August 1939–December 2001) was a Nigerian veteran seasoned dramatist, film actor, prolific playwright and Yoruba language scholar
Early life
He was born in August 1939 at Igbajo, a city in Osun State, southwestern Nigeria.
He attended the University of Ibadan in 1967 for a year course in drama, the same year he was appointed as a research assistant at Ibadan Institute of African Studies where he later retired.
Career
He began his acting career as a seasonal actor with the new western Nigerian television service in the early 1960s. He later worked with professor Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate and became a foundation member of Soyinka Orisun Theatre. His credible performance made him a choice for the role he played as "The bale" in The Lion and the Jewel and Dende in Kongi's Harvest by Nigerian writer, professor Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate. He also featured in The Beatification Of Area Boy, a play by Wole Soyinka premiered at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1995.
He had written and co-scripted several drama before his death in December 2001.
Filmography
- The Lion and the Jewel
- Kongi's Harvest
- Sango (1997)
- The Beatification Of Area Boy
- The Ijaye War (1970)
- Kiriji (1976)
- The Divorce (1975)
- Aare Akogun (1968) and Everyman *Eniyan, published in 1987)
- Langbodo (1979)
- "Wole Soyinka". google.com.ng. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
- "Menacing Shadows Greet Dawn In Nigeria". nytimes.com. 11 October 1996. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
- Yoruba Creativity. google.com.ng. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
- Kiriji. google.com.ng. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
- The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Theatre. google.co.za. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
- Pre-colonial and Post-colonial Drama and Theatre in Africa. google.nl. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
Awards
- Member of the Order of the Niger awarded in 1982 by the president of the Federal Republic of Niger
- Majeobaje of Okuku, achieftaincy title conferred on him by his royal highness, the Olokuku of Okukuland
- "Wale Ogunyemi, eminent playwright dies". World News. Retrieved 18 January 2015.