When Oluwasegun Gbadebo talks about theatre in Nigeria, his focus is not on tradition or revival. It is on access.
As Creative Director of TIATA TRYBE, Gbadebo is leading the company’s touring production Man Talk, Woman Talk across Northern Nigeria, with stops in Kano, Jigawa, and Kaduna. The project, staged in Kano on April 12, 2026, is part of a wider effort to test how live theatre travels beyond its usual southern audience base.
“Northern Nigeria is not new to storytelling,” he says. “What is missing is consistent exposure to live theatre as an experience.”
For Gbadebo, the decision to tour is less about expanding theatre’s image and more about placing it in spaces where it is not regularly staged. He describes the work as a practical attempt to understand how audiences respond when theatre is brought closer to them.
At its centre, Man Talk, Woman Talk focuses on everyday human behaviour, conflict, and misunderstanding. Gbadebo avoids framing it as culturally specific, instead positioning it as a story built around shared human experience.
“We are not trying to make it distant or abstract,” he says. “It is about people and how they respond to each other.”
That approach also informs how the production is staged. The use of Pidgin English and familiar social interactions keeps the performance accessible across different audiences, while the design avoids strong cultural or religious markers that might narrow its reach.
Gbadebo’s focus is on circulation rather than spectacle. He believes theatre in Nigeria has remained concentrated in a few cities for too long, limiting how widely the form is experienced.
“There is interest everywhere,” he says. “The question is whether theatre is being taken to those spaces often enough.”
The Kano staging reflected that point. Audience reactions during the performance included laughter, interruptions, and direct engagement with the actors, reinforcing the immediacy of live theatre.
“It reminds you that the audience is part of the performance,” he says.
Still, he acknowledges the practical limits of touring theatre. Funding, transport, venue availability, and technical logistics remain consistent challenges when staging productions across multiple states.
To manage this, TIATA TRYBE works with local partners in each location. Gbadebo says these collaborations help with both logistics and understanding audience context.
Security and movement between states also shape planning decisions, with careful attention paid to venues and scheduling.
Despite these constraints, he sees each staging as part of a longer process of building familiarity with live theatre in new environments.
For Gbadebo, the focus is not on scale, but on consistency, whether theatre can be made present beyond its usual spaces, and whether audiences continue to respond when it is.