MY WEEKEND IN A NUTSHELL

So the week has been very stressful, trying to adapt to my new job has been really demanding as I still have a lot on my plate, it's not been easy for me trying to understand some of the company's unwritten policies, and at the same time undergoing training to help me work more efficiently with the company. My weekend became even more stressful, if I'm to be honest I don't know which has been more stressful between my week and weekend. One of the things I wanted to achieve before Christmas was the last theater experience for the year which I gotta have this weekend. My team and I went through a total of 18 hours of rehearsals this weekend just to achieve our goal.

I will try to do a proper post on the theater part maybe later in the week, but for now, let's talk about the preparatory part. The Christians see this period as a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and for that, we thought to prepare for Christmas in a very interesting yet unanticipated way. Unanticipated because the story of Christmas has only been told in one direction, and we decided to tell it from a not-so-popular perspective. The idea was to create something outside the box, and using a fictional approach as well, we were able to tell the story of Christmas in our own traditional way.

First of all imagine the birth of Jesus was not in Israel but rather in Nigeria, and among the Yoruba tribe of Ile-ife😂. Being the writer here, I loved it because it made our story come with a lot of comic relief. This made every bit of the 18 hours spent on rehearsals (which included costuming and acting) so interesting that we didn't feel the stress of the rehearsals until after the performance, which was mind-blowing by the way. As we anticipated, over 5,000 gathered to watch us act, and from the response from the audience, it was very clear that we had them under lock and key throughout our performance.

I decided to watch the recap of the play online, and I discovered how much I have grown in theater, from a struggling writer to a novice actor whose legs were shaking on stage at the beginning of the year, to an actor who could produce lots of vibes for comic relief. 6 months ago I never saw myself as a comic actor, I remember how I would end up laughing in the middle of practice because my lines were just too funny for me not to laugh. Watching myself acting seriously without laughing on stage is another sign of how much I have grown this year. My last act for the year has become a memorable one, and for me, this is Christmas…

https://www.youtube.com/live/95XVAA-vmDg?si=K0-lT6B7KfI_5ubJ

You can watch the performance via the link if you like, the theater part is around 1:05:00 of the play

ALL PICTURE CREDIT IS MINE, ALL TAKEN BEFORE THE ACT