Segun Ojewuyi's headshot

Segun Ojewuyi

Professor/Head of Directing
sojewuyi@siu.edu
618-453-1893
Comm 1033
Africana Studies, Theater
Ojewuyi's international career as a Theater director/Critic/Actor and Scholar has covered parts of Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, America and the Mediterranean. His directing credits include the major playwrights of world drama - Shakespeare, Soyinka, Becket, Wilson, Miller, Brecht, Grass, Chekov, Ibsen, Fugard to list a few. His productions have been on stage in some of the very top Theaters of the world - the Birmingham Rep, Liverpool Playhouse, Everyman Theater Liverpool, Yale Repertory Theater, Public Theater Pittsburgh, Balhaus Theater in Berlin, the Oregon Shakespeare, St. Louis Black Rep., Habima Theater in Tel Aviv and the National Theater in Lagos, Nigeria, directing the National Troupe of Nigeria, amongst many others, garnering strong international reviews.

He has taught at Yale, the University of Lagos, Nigeria and Rowan University, New Jersey. He spent a semester as a Distinguished Visiting Artist at Kwara State University and Visiting Professor at Nassarawa State University both in Nigeria. He was the invited Keynote Speaker for the second annual National lecture of the Nigerian National institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) in 2011. In 2008 he convened the International Symposium - Muse and Mimesis: Wole Soyinka, Africa and the World, featuring the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka as keynote Speaker. In 2010 he led an International Cultural Exchange and Theatrical Tour “Preemptive/Seven” - to the U.K., Barbados and Nigeria, beginning the "WS (Wole Soyinka) Open Door Series - an annual International cultural Exchange and Theater Festival, in celebration of the ideals and artistry of Wole Soyinka.

Ojewuyi is a "Fellow of Theater Arts" conferred by the National Association of Nigerian Theater Arts Practitioners - the highest professional honor in Nigerian Theater. He is the winner of the 2007 Pittsburgh’s Onyx Best Theater Director award by the African American Academy for the Arts. He was the recipient of the British Council Commonwealth Fellowship, a Ford Foundation/Arts International Professional Development grant, the Horowitz Foundation Fellowship award, the Rowan University Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Recognition Award - 2000 and 2001. He is an Alumnus Fellow of the Salzburg Seminar, Salzburg Austria and grantee of the United States International Visitor’s Program, awarded by the United States Information Service. Ojewuyi is a graduate of Theater (Theater Arts Theory and Criticism) from the University of Ibadan Nigeria and the Yale University School of Drama (Directing). A regular contributor on Theater, Nigerian Arts and Culture, Ojewuyi has been featured in many Nigerian and international newspapers, Radio and Television. He is a member of the College of Liberal Arts Assessment Team, President of the College of Liberal Arts Council, served two terms as the Chair of the University Fine Arts Activity fees and was President of the Faculty Senate 2019/2020.

Teaches

Directing, Acting

Research and Creative Interests

Directing. African and African American Theater

Education

BA Theater Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
MA in Theater Arts – Criticism, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
MFA in Directing from Yale University

Affilitations

Association for Theater in Higher Education
The Black Theater Network
Fellow of Theater Arts (FTA), National Association of Nigerian Theater Arts Practitioners (NANTAP)