Olusola Oyeleye
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Olusola Oyeleye is a writer, director, performer and storyteller. She has worked extensively in education, both as a writer-in-residence and with a variety of theatre-in-education projects. As well as visits and residencies in schools across the country, she has worked with the South Bank Education Department, the Tate Gallery, the Royal Academy of Art and the English National Opera on their education and outreach work.
Her work in schools is immensely varied, working across the mediums of literature, storytelling, drama and music. In a project in Dorset schools, she carried out workshops and INSET training in the area of Equality and Justice, using drama, literature, movement, music and the visual arts to explore issues of race, gender and disability. For a school in east London, she worked with girls of Bengali and Syletti origin to write the play Mure-Mure, the Tree That Sings, which was then publicly performed at the school - a performance that then received praise from the Lloyds Bank Theatre Challenge. She also brings a wealth of ideas and experience in working with special needs children.
“The best storyteller we’ve ever had”.
June Darby, English Martyr Primary School, Wapping
As well as her education work, Olusola maintains a busy career as a writer and director, and is currently Artistic Director of the opera and theatre company ARIYA. She has directed a number of plays for children, most recently The Playground by Beverley Naidoo at the Polka Theatre in South London. Her credits for adults include:
Directing the opera Waterfall at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
Directing the highly acclaimed national tour of Dido and Aeneas, as part of the Purcell Tercentennial Celebrations
Directing Caryl Phillips The Shelter for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Early Stages Festival at the Barbican Theatre
As a staff producer with the English National Opera, producing The Mikado, Katya Kabanova, The Return of Ulysesses, and Beatrice and Benedict
She has also written plays, poetry, short films and essays, including work for Radio 5, BBC 2 and the BBC World Service, and won the ACER Black Penmanship Award. Her most recent composition is Below Rusumo Falls, a poem set to music about the Rwandan genocide.
Her work as a writer, director and educator have taken her to South Africa, Ghana, Zimbabwe, the USA and several European countries.
‘She ticked so many boxes it was amazing - drama, music, dancing, literacy, poetry, home languages - at least twenty boxes… and the best thing was that she brought out achievement in the kids who really needed it most.’
Andrea Telman, Davidson Primary School, Croydon
