Romeo and Juliet’s theater is set to take place today November 1 at Kigali Serena Hotel Kigali at 5 pm at an entrace fee Rwf10,000 for everyone. Organised by Mamaland performing arts in partnership with a Positive production and Touch Media design, the play is depicted from the famous play Romeo & Juliet, written by Englishman, William Shakespeare and published in 1595. Dan Nsengiyumva caught up with Jean de Dieu Mukama, also known as Mukama Wanjye, CEO of Mamaland performing art and theatre actor on the inspiration behind the play and expectations. Mukama wanjye CEO of Mamaland performing art/ courtesy Where did the idea of Romeo and Juliet’s theater come from? The idea came about when I was reading the book by William Shakespeare in 1996, but it was not easy for me to put in action my idea, because of other responsibilities. However, I chose the idea of making theaters, because of the career I was doing before. Which language will be used in the play? We will use different languages, like Kinyarwanda, English, and French because we need to put our theaters out there for people to understand. Besides Romeo and Juliet, which other theatre plays do you have? We have many more, some of them are related to Rwandan histories like Ruganzu story or other foreign stories. Should people expect to see more theater plays? No, it is Romeo and Juliet’s story only today, alhough we are planning to give people theater plays every three months. As the director, how many actors do you have? We have twenty-five actors with ten ladies, and and all of them can act in all the languages. Some of the actors in Mamaland performing art/courtesy In planing this event, what challenges have you faced? My challenges were getting the partners and capital for my project because it is a huge thing to do every three months. What more can people expect from your plays? We will have a live band, music mix, theater performances as well as famous actors gracing the stage such as Willy Ndahiro and I.
