For twenty-four years, Crown Troupe of Africa, one of Nigeria’s leading performing arts groups, has enjoyed a proud heritage of providing theatregoers with the best of theatrical performances.
A total-theatre company, Crown Troupe comprises of artistes whose forte is the creation of new but socially relevant works which are performed in conventional and non-conventional spaces.
Reminiscing on the troupe’s establishment in a message titled: Ọpẹlóyẹrú, Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Troupe, Segun Adefila, said the troupe started from a very modest beginning with little experience of the theatre turf “before diving headlong in.”
Adefila said: “For the records, Crown Troupe started in one of the living rooms of the Juju music maestro, King Sunny Ade. Myself and a couple of friends, Sele, Cynthia, Kunle, Loice, Ada, Femi and a few others, all huddled up in that living room and Crown Troupe was birthed on the first of June, 1996.
“We had nothing but our passion and guts. We wanted to start a performing arts company and that was it. No thoughts about how to go about acquiring the necessary items needed. No drums, no costumes, no props and not a single thought for food on the table. We were just boiling! Let’s leave the full story till later.”
Since its establishment in 1996, Crown Troupe boasts of a number of successful theatrical performances like Bode Osanyin’s ‘Orisa’, ‘Moremi’, Wole Soyinka’s ‘A Dance of the Forest’ and ‘Eko Dialogue’ (an adaptation).
The troupe has retained Bariga, a suburban arts enclave on Lagos mainland, as its base, giving life-changing opportunities to several underprivileged youths in the area.