Kenya, November 2024, we had 4200 people. FIVE SOLD OUT SHOWS. There was no way we couldn’t rewind selecta, Nairobi – we heard you loud and clear. The Too Early For Birds Tom Mboya Edition is back – with six shows this time, instead of five, because we all just can’t get enough!
Early Bird tickets being sold out doesn’t mean you’re too late. You’re right on time, just like how TJ – that’s Thomas Joseph Odhiambo Mboya to you – showed up right on time when people wondered where he and Miriam Makeba had disappeared to. If you don’t know what story this is, you should probably come to the show, yes?
This year not only marks 55 years since his assassination, but also draws an eerie parallel to the year Kenya has had, in shaping, much like Mboya, what Kenya is going to be. So yes, we all know the story, but no one has seen it told quite like this, pulling the threads of the past to weave a tapestry for the future.
This tapestry continues to be woven alongside other stories in Kenya’s artistic scene, inspired by and linked to each other by the common origins of the freedoms of our people; shows like DaiVerse, Lwanda Magere, Blooms In The Dark, Tumetoka Very Far, Sarafina, Dedan Kimathi The Musical, and many other productions that swelled in the wave of expression.
How did a boy from the labourer quarters of a colonial settler farm grow up to rub shoulders with continental legends like Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Martin Luther King, and John F Kennedy, all before he was 30 years old? How did he become a legend himself? Aside from the country he loved, who else did he love? Who were his friends, and in what fires is a true revolutionary forged?
The revolutionary who, by the way, spurred initiatives like airlifts that then gave us the gifts of Wangari Maathai, Barack Obama and Philip Ochieng. We are exploring all these questions from Tom Mboya’s life, and his death.
The juicy, the astounding, the jarring, the tantalizing; you get to see it all. This edition will be showing at Jain Bhavan, Loresho, from Thursday, November 21, to Sunday, November 24. Get your tickets here.
The cast is made up of some of Kenya’s most incredible talents: Xavier Ywaya (40 Sticks, Igiza) in the title role, Shiviske Shivisi (Disconnect, Poacher), Ngartia (Too Early For Birds, DaiVerse) Doanna Owano (Soweto Burning, Lwanda Rockman) Anubav Garg (Salem, Wildeverse) Mercy Mutisya (Antisocial, A Grand Little Lie) Elsaphan Njora (Because You Said So, EOP Nation) Chandni Vaya, Nyokabi Macharia (Big Mouth, Country Queen), Abu Nuuman (Too Early For Birds, Country Queen), Martin Kigondu (Lwanda Otero, They That Have Missing Marks Shall Not Graduate) and a host of amazingly gifted artists supporting and creating with them.
Too Early For Birds, in its seventh edition, continues the important tradition of storytelling Kenyan history, priding itself on doing so in a way that is fresh, funky, and uniquely ours.
Since 2017, we have narrated the stories of Wangari Maathai, The Nyayo House Survivors, Zarina Patel, Timothy Njoya, Field Marshal Muthoni Wa Kirima, Otenyo Nyamatere, Syokimau, Paul Ngei, William McMillan, the resistance at Lumboka and Chetambe, amongst many others.
Gathoni Kimuyu is a producer, writer, actor and digital content creator, as well as the Executive Producer of Story Zetu, the storytelling theatrical collective behind Too Early For Birds. She is a visionary creative and advocate for social justice. With a diverse range of creative skills, she uses her talents to address pressing societal issues and challenge the status quo.
Grab your tickets now via mookh.com
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