For the Easter holidays, young actors are set to shine on stage alongside the seasoned ones. In Lagos, Tosin Adeyemi, who is currently on set Bolanle Austen-Peters’ Motherland the Musical for the Easter weekend 2023, is one actress to watch.
Having been in the acting career for a decade, she has been working across television, film and digital media alongside theatre work. Thus, she entertains her audience with prodigious talent as an all-round actor whose popularity has come to stay in the Nigerian arts and entertainment turf.
“Having my foundation performing on stage, I have over the years evolved and lent my talents on TV as well as the big screen,” she began. “Looking back I can give myself a bit of a pat on the back and say, even though I’m a long way from where I’m working towards being, I’m definitely a long way from where I started. I can say that my journey has been wonderful.
From the time of partaking in productions that do not have any monetary benefits to doing shows that you get paid for, to doing shows that are for the culture, that’s art for art’s sake, I would say that I have contributed my own quota to telling and portraying believable stories.”
Recounting her first experience on stage, she mentioned her teething years on stage while studying for a degree.
“I actually studied Theatre Arts. I have a degree in theatre from the University of Lagos and a Certificate in Acting from LA CINÉFABRIQUE film school in Lyon, France. You see, I’ve been doing this for a bit.
“I think I did see a long career path in this. I actually wanted to study music at first, but when I got into university, I decided that, oh I liked acting and dancing and singing, so why don’t I just do everything, and that’s why I decided to go for theatre. So, my first experience on stage was in school. Almost everyone and all the lecturers knew me then. From year one I would, you know, perform with 400 and 300 level students. It was something that I loved to do. I still love to do!”
Her first professional out-of-school performance on the big stage was Kakadu the Musical- the 2013 production performed in Lagos and Port Harcourt.
Flashback to 2014, she recalled playing the role of queen of the night at the Lagos Theatre Festival (LTF).
“That particular performance opened me to so many other opportunities and it was directed by Wole Oguntokun. The second would be Moremi in Queen Moremi the Musical, directed by Bolanle Austen-Peters. The reason would be that I played a historical character and it was an awesome experience embodying the character, especially bearing in mind all she’d accomplished and what she has come to represent.”
For her, this season is busy with lots of upcoming projects.
“I just finished shooting on the set of Tokunbo, a Ramsey Noah film, produced by Chris Odeh. I play the character Lisa. That one I’m so excited about, and I can’t wait for you to see it, when it’s released. I’m currently showing in an Afmag series titled Ricordi, it shows on Showmax and Ch151 on DSTV, and it’s been amazing seeing the reviews so far.
“At the moment, I’m playing Hassana in Motherland the Musical. We had 15 shows last December and we began another run that starts on Good Friday and runs through the Easter Weekend at Terra Kulture Theatre Arena from April 7 through April 10.”
