Years active 1963–present Ethnicity Yoruba Name Wale Ogunyemi | Citizenship Nigerian Role Dramatist Occupation playwriter Movies Sango, Kongi's Harvest | |
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Known for The Lion and the JewelKongi's HarvestSangoLangbodo Died December 18, 2001, Ibadan, Nigeria Books Langbodo: Dramatized from Soyinka/Fagunwa's "The Forest of a Thousand Daemons" Similar People Femi Lesode, Ossie Davis, Jimi Solanke, Adebisi Akande, Isiaka Adeleke | ||
IJAYE by wale Ogunyemi
Wale Ogunyemi, OFR (12 August 1939–December 2001) was a Nigerian veteran seasoned dramatist, film actor, prolific playwright and Yoruba language scholar
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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.