Asiedu Yirenkyi (8 December 1942 – 10 May 2018) was a

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

ian playwright, actor, director, theatre company manager and author of screen plays. He was born Emmanuel Asiedu Yirenchi at Amanase in the Eastern Region of Ghana to Charles Okata Yirenkyi, a farmer and Comfort Yaa Nyarkoa, a homemaker and belonged to the Akyepere Kotoku clan (quarter) of Mampong Akuapem. He was the younger brother of the late Ghanaian actor and film maker Rev. Kofi Yirenkyi and the nephew of Ghanaian medical doctor and sculptor Dr. Oku Ampofo. Yirenkyi's name has been associated with pioneering roles in Drama and the National Theatre movement from the early days of Ghana's independence. He was a member of Ghana's first experimental theatre group in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s he joined Efua Sutherland's Drama Studio players as a boy actor and was among the group of studio players who performed on the night Dr. Kwame Nkrumah formally opened the Drama Studio in 1960. His formal education in Theatre began with a Diploma in Drama from the

University of Ghana The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It is the oldest public university in the country. The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the British colony of the Gold Coast ...

Legon Legon , a suburb of the Ghanaian city Accra, is situated about north-east of the city center in the Ayawaso West Municipal District, a district in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. Legon is home to the main campus of the University of Ghana. ...

. In 1968, when Yirenkyi gained admission into the

Yale School of Drama The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in ...

he made history by becoming the first Ghanaian to receive a grant to study drama in the USA. He graduated in 1971 with the prestigious John Golden Scholar Award in Playwriting. At Yale his mates included African American Theatre icon Walter Dallas and Henry Winkler. During his studentship at Yale he taught African history and African Literature at the James Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut. He returned to Ghana after his studies and lectured at the University of Ghana, Legon and at the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. Like writer

Ama Ata Aidoo Ama Ata Aidoo (23 March 1942 — 31 May 2023) was a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright, politician, and academic. She was a Secretary for Education in Ghana from 1982 to 1983 under Jerry Rawlings's PNDC administration. Her first play, '' The Dil ...

, also involved in the Ghana Drama Studio, Yirenkyi later served as a minister in the

Provisional National Defence Council The Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) was the name of the Ghanaian government after the People's National Party's elected government was overthrown by Jerry Rawlings, the former head of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, in a coup ...

Jerry Rawlings Jerry John Rawlings (born Jerry Rawlings John; 22 June 194712 November 2020) was a Ghanaian military officer, aviator, and politician who led the country briefly in 1979 and then from 1981 to 2001. He led a military junta until 1993 and then se ...

: he was Secretary for Culture and Tourism from 1982 to 1984, when he resigned. It was under his political leadership in 1983 that the first elaborate work on Ghana's Cultural Policy was carried out."The Cultural Policy of Ghana"
National Commission on Culture, 2004. Yirenkyi later served twice as the chairman of Ghana's National Folklore Board and as a

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

consultant on the

National Theatre of Ghana The National Theatre of Ghana was opened in 1992 in Accra, the capital of Ghana, to spearhead the country's theatre movement by providing a multi-functional venue for concerts, dance, drama and musical performances, screenplays, exhibitions and ...

. He died on 10 May 2018 and in line with his wishes was interred at Mampong Akuapem

Works

* ''Kivuli and other plays'', 1980 * ''Dasebre: a play on African rituals and games'', 1990 * ''Two Plays: Dasebre and The Red Ants'', 2003

References

1942 births 2018 deaths Ghanaian writers Ghanaian dramatists and playwrights {{playwright-stub