Welcome To Our Department

The Department of Dramatic Arts was one of the four academic Departments created when the former Institute of African Studies was dissolved in 1977, the other three Departments being Music, Fine Arts, and Linguistics and African Languages. Professor Ola Rotimi, then a Senior Research fellow in the Institute handled the process of transition in 1976 – 1977 while Professor Wole Soyinka who in 1986 would become the first Black winner of Nobel Prize in Literature took over as Professor and Head once the Department took fully in 1977. The Bachelor of Arts degree programme is designed to develop students’ ability to analyse texts, and produce plays both for the stage and the different media. It also has the aim of making students understand the link between, and as stated in the Departmental Handbook, the arts and culture of a society and the values, beliefs, and its indigenous science and technological breakthroughs. The programme further seeks to develop students’ abilities to comprehend and explain works on drama enacted either on stage, or on radio, television and film.

Finally, the course also seeks to expose students to critical and dramatic theories as handed down over the ages and in different societies.The Department took off with two programmes in 1977. The first is a one-year Certificate in Dramatic Arts (CDA) programme, and the second a four-year B.A degree programme. The first set of degree students graduated in 1981. The Certificate programme on the other hand turned out graduates on a yearly basis, such that by the time the University took a decision to discontinue it in 1999, it had churned out close to 1000 professionally competent people, many of whom remain in media and theatre practice till date.