Paris Alston: This is GBH is Morning Edition. Boston is home to a wide array of communities and cultures, including the rich diversity of the African diaspora. To highlight one of those cultures, the Huntington Theater in Boston has announced a two year festival of nine plays, all centering a Nigerian American family.
Previously recorded: I think I am going to call my father. I am the first of his to be here. If I go back in. Oh, Bassey, what is this? You going to leave? Because if you tell your pops and he a pops worth his salt, he gon’ make you leave. I will make you leave. If I was here, I don’t know your choice. My choice? Oh, I brought you something. Hey, it’s my favorite American pastime. Hey.
Alston: Ufot Family Cycle was written by acclaimed local playwright Mfoniso Udofia, who joins us this morning with more. Good morning. Thanks for being here.
Mfoniso Udofia: Good morning. Hi. I’m happy to be here.
Alston: So tell us more about this festival and how you came up with this idea.
Udofia: The festival, which is going to be spearheaded by the Huntington, and then popping all over the city to different producing partners with different activation partners — it’s been a dream of mine since I started writing in 2009-ish. Time is a bit of a flat circle, so I think it’s 2009 that I started writing. And it’s going to start in September. I’ll go into rehearsals with everything opening at the Huntington in November for the very first play in the cycle, which is Sojourners. And then it’ll go, we’ll go into the Grove, which will also be done by the Huntington. And then from there, we’re going to be popping all over the city until 2026. So, yeah, when I first started writing, I was hoping that one day we would get to see it all drawn out and everybody could experience all nine plays at one time. And now it’s happening in my home state in Massachusetts.
Alston: That is wonderful. And how will these nine plays over this two-year span work together, and separately?
Udofia: Each play is meant to be seen alone. You can see them alone. And then if you see them together, you get an even bigger story. Each play has a different genre, like one play will be a little episodic. Another play will be like, a nod to the Greeks. Each play tackles its own question, like the origin story will ask itself: Can the Nigerian dream operate, function and manifest in America? But then when you see them all together — which is my greatest hope, and the thing that is now happening — when you can see them all together, you actually will get over the span of 100 years what it was and what it takes to create a legacy, a Nigerian-American American legacy in this country, specifically landing in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Alston: What kinds of partners and organizations are involved to make this all happen?
Udofia: Central Square Theater will be involved. They’ll be doing Her Portmanteau. You’ve got BAA, Boston Arts Academy, Boston Public Schools, which will be doing KUFRE N’ QUAY. Zoom forward and you’ve got Boston Lyric Opera, which will be doing the last installation in the cycle, which is an opera together with the Huntington. And then you’ve got different activation partners coming in, the different community organizations in the city that are also coming forth to talk about the festival, to talk about the plays, to support and everything from bringing people out who need to see the play to spreading the word and educating around certain plays. So, I mean, that’s a very, very tight nutshell there, I think over 20 partners already.
Alston: And one part of this that the Huntington shared in its announcement is that there will also be free pop-up performances of the first play, Sojourners, in different neighborhoods like East Boston, Hyde Park and Roxbury. Why was that important to include in this effort?
Udofia: Well, that’s really important because I’m writing about Nigerian Americans in this country. I’m writing immigrant stories. And there’s a way in which the theater can feel like this thing over there that other people go to, and it doesn’t always feel relevant. I know that in some of my own family members’ lives, it’s like, what is theater? And so we’re going to the community to show that this is for you, of you, made by someone who is you, and not making the demand that you go to the theater. You don’t have to go to the Huntington. We’ll bring the shows to you.
Alston: You talked about your Massachusetts roots. So you grew up in Southbridge and went to Wellesley College. You also talk about how the story that’s told through Sojourners is reflected of so many experiences of people coming to this country and making a life for themselves. How will we see that unfold with this first play?
Udofia: They’re going to be taking a look at some of the people who sojourned out of Nigeria with the dream that they would come to America, get an education, hopefully have a baby, so in case they couldn’t manifest their dream, their children could. And then the hope was to go back and you rebuild Nigeria in the way that you want to see it. And so this is going to be a play that asks ourselves, and I hope asks the audience, what it is to build. What happens when dream starts shifting underneath your feet? And can a Nigerian dream like that work when all of a sudden you’re in a new land, when you’re in America? We are starting this show in 1978, I believe. So it’s not exactly present day, but some of the knocks of life are things that I think many immigrants might go through once they first land here. And I’m asking all of our audiences to lovingly take that in, and to know that, like the American Dream usually lives alongside another dream that an immigrant might have as well.
Alston: And when you think about the fact that your play is being showcased in this way, would you say that that dream has been realized for you?
Udofia: Yeah, absolutely. As an artist, I’m seeing it manifest.
Alston: Well, that was acclaimed local playwright and Mfoniso Udofia. Thank you so very much.
Udofia: Thank you.
Alston: And Boston's Ufot Family Cycle will begin in September and take place over two years. We should mention that GBH is also a partner in bringing this dream to life. You can find out more at Huntingtontheatre.org. You are listening to GBH news.
The Ufot Family Cycle, a series of nine plays written by acclaimed local playwright Mfoniso Udofia which track the stories of a Nigerian-American family over generations and genres, will take stages across Boston starting in 2024, Udofia and The Huntington Theatre announced this week.
“It’s been a dream of mine since I started writing in 2009-ish,” Udofia told GBH’s Morning Edition co-host Paris Alston. “I first started writing, I was hoping that one day we would get to see it all drawn out and everybody could experience all nine plays at one time. And now it’s happening in my home state in Massachusetts.”
Udofia, who grew up in a Nigerian family in Southbridge and went to Wellesley College, said staging these plays in Massachusetts feels important to her.
“I’m asking all of our audiences to lovingly take that in, and to know that, that the American Dream usually lives alongside another dream that an immigrant might have as well,” she said.
The Huntington Theatre series begins with “Sojourners,” the story of the character Abasiama Ekpeyoung, a young woman who immigrates from Nigeria to Worcester in the 1970s with hopes of escaping war and one day being able to return home.
It then follows the stories of her and the rest of her family as they make their lives in America, exploring what it means to hold onto the Nigerian dream in the U.S.
“Each play is meant to be seen alone,” Udofia said. “But then when you see them all together — which is my greatest hope, and the thing that is now happening — when you can see them all together, you actually will get over the span of 100 years what it was and what it takes to create a legacy, a Nigerian American legacy in this country, specifically landing in Worcester, Massachusetts.”
The plays also have different genres, she said, from episodic styles to nods to Greek theater and folk opera. Each play tackles its own question, she said.
“The origin story will ask itself: Can the Nigerian dream operate, function and manifest in America?” Udofia said. “What happens when dream starts shifting underneath your feet? And can a Nigerian dream like that work when all of a sudden you’re in a new land, when you’re in America?”
There will be performances at The Huntington Theatre, but also across the city — from theater spaces to places where people who don’t usually feel welcome at the theater find more accessible, she said.
“That’s really important because I’m writing about Nigerian Americans in this country. I’m writing immigrant stories. And there’s a way in which the theater can feel like this thing over there that other people go to, and it doesn’t always feel relevant,” she said. “I know that in some of my own family members’ lives, it’s like, what is theater? And so we’re going to the community to show that this is for you, of you, made by someone who is you, and not making the demand that you go to the theater. You don’t have to go to the Huntington. We’ll bring the shows to you.”
