Creating a Pocket-Friendly Theatre in Nigeria through the Socialmedia: An Experiment with Ahmed Yerima’s The Sisters Video Upload

Abstract

Theatre practice in Nigeria is facing a general decline due to factors that are very glaring. One of such factor is the digital culture that has forced citizens to live a private live that is more comfortable and thereby reducing patronage. In spite of this obvious fact our Nigerian theatre is still ignoring the effective application of these digital network sites especially the social media in redeeming the declined image of the theatre industry. This study uses the literary and artistic methodologies to examine the video upload of Ahmed Yerima’s The Sisters with a view of creating a template for creating a pocket-friendly theatre through the social media. The study therefore, observes that most of the video uploads posted on social media sites are merely for social reasons without commercial drive. It also observes that theatre practitioners in Nigeria are not profit driven but social driven in the practice of their art. The paper therefore, recommends strongly a culture of video upload for commercial reasons, commercialization of websites in most Nigerian universities to generate money for the university and the theatre and improvement on the technical quality of the video uploads.