Oluwafemi Akinlawon Atoyebi (CSSD) - 2025-26 Students
248492@cssd.ac.uk

Decolonising Verbatim and Testimonial Theatre: Performing Memories of West African Private Fostering in White British Families in Britain from 1950-1980

This CDA engages the performance of memories of West African private fostering in white British families in Britain through a decolonial verbatim and testimonial theatre practice. As a CDA, it leverages on the collaboration of The African Centre, a London based art and cultural space for Africans in diaspora with rich historical archive and networks and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, a renown academy for excellent theatre and performance research. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the project draws on methodologies from oral history, critical study and Drama and theatre. It does so to decolonise verbatim and testimonial playwriting practice by centring West African storytelling elements and testimonies of the fostered West Africans through a practice led participatory storytelling workshop to challenge the Euro-American ‘theatre of the real’. It will contribute new scholarship and methodological approaches to verbatim and testimonial theatre as site of decolonial praxis for the repressed history of West Africans who are privately fostered in Britain.

The student will benefit from access to The African Centre archive, networks, exhibitions and professional developments and Central’s expertise in theatre training and research supervision. The research will further Royal Central School of Speech and Drama commitment to inclusivity and The African Centre’s mission to promoting the diaspora Africans voice through arts and culture.

Principal supervisor: Dr. Amanda Stuart Fisher

Supervisor at Partner Organisation: Olu Alake, Chief Executive Officer

Partner Organisation: The African Centre