Skin Deep’s Nkenna Akunna meets Okwui Okpokwasili, a Nigerian American dancer, choreographer and 2018 MacArthur Genius recipient currently closing the run of her show ‘Bronx Gothic’ at the Young Vic.
Author: Nkenna Akunna
Nkenna is an Igbo playwright and performer from London. Her work has been staged in the UK and USA, and she is a winner of the 2021 Rosa Parks Playwriting Award and 2021 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center, the 2021 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting, and the 2021 Papatango Prize. Nkenna is currently an MFA candidate in Playwriting at Brown University and she is represented by Alex Rusher at Independent Talent.
Nkenna has been writing and editing for Skin Deep since 2015, and has lead on our online editorial work, including our written interview series Skin Deep Meets. She is currently based in New York and missing London every day.
Email: nkenna at skindeepmag dot com / Twitter: @nkenna_akunna / Insta: @nkenna_akunna
Jay Bernard’s Surge, the process of documenting overlooked Black British history, and the struggles we are yet to overcome
Paying homage to the victims of the New Cross fire in 1981.
Skin Deep meets Yrsa Daley-Ward
The Terrible is a different thing for everybody. It is a shape-shifting thing, it can be whatever the thing is in you that trips you up again and again and again.
On Loneliness and Finding Ourselves in Each Other, with Fatimah Asghar
Diasporic loneliness is distinct. It’s an ever-present vibration under the skin, in some moments unremarkable and in others turbulent.
Hoard, Bim Adewunmi’s love letter to the Black British experience
Bim Adewunmi’s debut play ‘Hoard’ explores the contours of a multi-generational British Nigerian family.
Noughts and Crosses – why Malorie Blackman’s tale is still so relevant today.
Nkenna Akunna chats to actor Heather Agyepong about playing Sephy in Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation of Noughts & Crosses.
How can we go forward if we don’t make peace with our past?
Skin Deep’s Nkenna Akunna meets Shingai to have an honest conversation about growing up, ancient civilizations and dealing with grief.
What happens when the people at the bottom of the empire tell the story?
On basking in the glory of history being made on stage in Lynette Linton and Adjoa Andoh’s Richard II revival.
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Skin Deep meets Hanif Abdurraqib
Nkenna Akunna talks to Hanif Abdurraqib about his book ‘They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us,’ a stunning interrogation of the United States through music.
Chant Down Babylon: we chat to curators Tobi Kyeremanteng & Ruthie Osterman
In a celebration of Black and Brown lives and experiences, Skin Deep’s Nkenna Akunna chats to Tobi and Ruthie on the creation of Babylon Festival.