This paper deploys Brouwer and Squires’ (2003) [Public intellectuals, public life, and the university. Argumentation and Advocacy, 39 (3), 201–213] concepts of ‘breadth’, ‘site/ location’ and ‘legitimacy’ as conceptual categories to frame and examine Stephen Chifunyise’s artistic and cultural practice of public intellectualism. Stephen Chifunyise’s artistic and cultural work spanned decades, working in Zimbabwe and Zambia, the academy and industry, and taking up consultancy and administration positions in government. This paper explores how this work by Chifunyise positions him as a public intellectual who shaped policy, ideological, epistemological and ontological foundations for cultural work, artistic training and development at the tertiary level, and policy formulation at a regional and continental level. This paper draws from several plays and theatre scripts, published research papers and policy documents to highlight the breadth, location and legitimacy of Chifunyise’s public intellectualism in Zimbabwe and Africa. This paper further submits that Chifunyise’s public intellectualism is located in how he uses his experiences in telling stories that speak to his environment and that of his publics’ lived existence, ways of experiencing and seeing and locatedness in the ‘village’.

Sometimes cultural policies are dismissed and criticized by some artists and cultural practitioners as banal and other times they are deemed pivotal in the democratization of culture, cultural democracy and the advancement of a democratic society. This ambivalent perception of arts and cultural policies results in many missed opportunities in the production and distribution of cultural and creative expressions like plays and theatre. This paper sets out to answer the question about how cultural policies shape the advancement of cultural and creative expressions in post-independence Zimbabwe. Stephen Joel Chifunyise’s plays and theatre as case examples provide insightful snippets of the role and power of cultural policies in the advancement of the cultural and creative sector and the broader society. This is achieved through a review of academic publications, policy documents and cultural policy texts. The theoretical lens partially deployed here is interpretive policy analysis, which reads the meaning of cultural policies through authored and constructed policy texts such as plays, theatre productions, theatre infrastructure, theatre festivals, publishing houses, book fairs, policy documents and public pronouncements. In addition to the interpretive policy analysis, I also deploy the concept of explicit and implicit cultural policies to comprehensively look at the role of direct cultural policies and indirect cultural policies in the theatre sector in Zimbabwe. The second lens is used to analyse the impact of Zimbabwean implicit and explicit cultural policies on the theatre sector through Chifunyise’s plays and theatre. In critically answering the central question, this paper argues that Zimbabwe has several implicit cultural policies whose effect on the theatre is felt more through constructed cultural policy texts than authored cultural policy texts, and thus, all cultural expressions are inevitably shaped by one cultural policy or the other.

This article explores the intersection of gender roles, traditional Shona culture, and colonial legacies in Stephen Chifunyise’s play Oh My Grandfather (2018). Set in post-colonial Zimbabwe, the play highlights generational conflicts within the Matanga family, reflecting broader societal struggles. It explores how patriarchal Shona traditions continue to dictate gender dynamics, which are largely oppressive toward women. The article focuses on the roles of Morgan and Dorcas, who navigate between these traditional expectations and modern, Western values, creating what Homi K. Bhabha terms a ‘Third Space’ of cultural hybridity. The article discusses how Chifunyise critiques rigid gender norms while advocating for a balance between preserving cultural heritage and embracing modern ideals, such as gender equality. By highlighting characters like Dorcas and Tandi, who resist oppressive traditions, the play suggests that cultural practices can evolve without perpetuating injustice. Ultimately, Oh My Grandfather provides a nuanced exploration of the complexities of cultural identity in contemporary Zimbabwe, advocating for an integration of tradition and modernity that promotes a more equitable society.

This article explores Stephen Chifunyise’s portrayal of empowering identities of women which are considered as ‘gender activist’. Many of Chifunyise’s plays deal with gendered issues of space, democracy, governance and citizenship. The plays are rooted in African culture which attempts to balance the gendered nature of African communities to effectively advocate for the adoption of critical changes that have happened within these communities. The article views Chifunyise as a gender activist who uses theatre to bring to the fore issues which highlight the plight of women. The article utilizes an Africana Womanist perspective to analyse how Chifunyise includes women in society and more importantly, structures the way in which they are to be included as partners to the development of societies. Africana Womanism acknowledges men as part of this experience and as being key in its construction and in the deconstruction of women’s oppression. The article will analyse Chifunyise’s Waiting for Constitution (2010) and 365 (2011).

The robust multiculturalism debate and its attendant metaphors have paid little attention to the peculiar realities of managing the inherent cultural diversity in Africa. This paper opens up the existing debate on multiculturalism, and offers an option of the Fruit Salad Juice as the identity produced through the active cultural interactions within a typical African multi-ethnic state. The Fruit Salad Juice alternative specifically applies to the theatrical performances that emanate from these multicultural collaborations. The paper examines Su-dir dance theatre being one of the products of the Let’s Sheathe Our Swords (LSOS) project launched by the Nasarawa State government of Nigeria to facilitate social therapy and cultural integration after a protracted period of inter-ethnic, religious and political crises in the state. Data for this study was collated through the participant observation and interview methods. At various points, I conducted interviews with the administrators, consultants, and artistes of the Nasarawa State Performing Troupe, as well as some members of the Su-Dir audience. Nasarawa state is conceptualized as a fruit salad bowl, and the LSOS theatrical pieces as juice produced thereof. The idea of Fruit Salad Juice is demonstrated in the evidence of inclusivity and state identity found in the compositional elements of the Su-dir dance theatre and other outcomes of the LSOS project.

While ‘trauma' has become a buzzword encompassing any distressing event, its definition as an unassimilated psychological wound, unresolved and recurrent, also means that it cannot ever be completely known. Trauma therapy seeks to reintegrate experiences, breaking the cycle of perpetual suffering through fragmentary recollection. Drama and performance art offer a platform for this reintegration, potentially facilitating healing. However, the fine line between therapeutic confrontation and re-traumatization necessitates careful navigation, avoiding triggering negative emotions. Crucially, not all traumatic events lead to PTSD; resilience and communal support can mitigate the effects of distressing experiences, as seen in instances of shared acceptance and forgiveness. Theatre's role in addressing trauma lies in its ability to bear witness, creating spaces for communal acknowledgment and shared grieving. While contemporary performances often revel in discomfort, embracing unresolved narratives, they prompt reflection on the limitations of representation. Art's transformative potential lies not in explicit curative intent but in its expression of unresolved complexities of human experience. Through patience, acceptance, and a refusal to impose meaning, creative arts can serve as a site for healing, fostering empathy and connection amidst the fragmentary experience of what Freud called ‘traumatic neurosis,’ what has since come to be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In this article, I want to explore the life and creative practice of Stephen Chifunyise to assemble a couple of features that characterize his work which he called ‘national theatre’. My starting point is that all theory is derived from practice and comes back to guide practice. By interrogating Chifunyise’s training manuals, plays, speeches, academic papers, workshop materials, contributions to newspapers and his own practice, certain trends begin to emerge which speak to a normative practice that many theatre groups/companies in Zimbabwe deployed. Within the context of this creative practice, many other African nations were grappling with the idea of a national theatre before and after Zimbabwe’s search for a theatre identity. All these African countries were foregrounding an indigenous text, usually storytelling, as the theatrical frame to which other texts and codes could be grafted to create an African aesthetic. Despite the cultural diversity of sub-Saharan Africa, there seems to be an agreement on the general framework of theatre. In this article, I have called the theory which emerged from this practice, Afroscenology. As different scholars contribute different tenets to the same theory, my underlying objective is to spell out Chifunyise’s contribution to the theory of Afroscenology.

Writing is very recent in Zimbabwe, with the first Shona novel published in 1956. Before missionaries came with books and the practice of writing, indigenous people were a word of mouth people. They exploited folktales for values formation, education, communication and problem solving. Through folktales, they also researched and documented events. While folktales were affected by colonialism through the social changes that took place because of westernization, they continued to co-exist alongside written books for a while before they were eventually silenced by Zimbabwe’s long war for liberation. By the time the guns fell silent and a new government came to power, new tales and new folk heroes had taken centre stage. This autoethnographic paper is a reflection of a conversation between two storytellers – the author and the late playwright and storyteller – Stephen Chifunyise. It points out the shared views about the role of storytelling in society and how Chifunyise who told stories on television saw the transformative power of the art and the role it could play in democratizing communication as well as offering home grown solutions in an Africa that is attempting to integrate its indigenous values and systems into a world economy. The paper reminisces on the need for Africa to take stock of the power in indigenous knowledge systems and how Africans can come together to mainstream storytelling, share ideas and exchange information to revive the practice. The paper argues that Africa needs to go back to her stories and thought systems as is reflected in an African philosophy that is used by Shona storytellers to conclude their stories, ‘Ndipo pakafira sarungano,’ which metaphorically means, ‘the death of the storyteller is not the death of the story.’