BREAKING NEWS: Ugandans Scoop All the Prizes in the 2010 BBC Playwriting Competition!!!

We are on top of the literary world after three Ugandan playwrights won the 2010 BBC African Performance Playwriting competition!

Deborah Asiimwe (in picture) took the top prize that comes with a financial reward of 1000 pounds for her play Will Smith Look Alike. The play which will be broadcast on BBC is about a student who travels to the United States with his school music group after they won a national competition, and believes that his resemblance to the American actor Will Smith will help him to pursue a better life there.

The second position was jointly snatched by Keneth Bashir Atwiine for Kitu Kidogo, a story about two corrupt policemen, and Julia Child's The Coffin Factory a hilarious play that addresses the stigma of HIV.

Angella Emurwon's The Cow Needs A Wife came third. It's a comical piece about a young man whose girlfriend discovers she is pregnant.

To scoop all the three top positions is a seismic achievement for Uganda considering that it knocked down Nigeria from the literary pedestal it had long enjoyed.

Prof. Wole Soyinka, who judged this year's competition commented: "I don't know whether Ugandans think they want to knock Nigerians out of this competition because Nigerians used to take everything but this year, no show. I am glad of course I didn't know who on earth was writing which play."

The Nobel laureate added, "Deborah Asiimwe's writing was very good, and I became really caught up with the play wondering what the final denouement would be. It was convincing."

An excited Asiimwe, told me about the day BCC called to say she was the overall winner of the prestigious competition:

"May 10th 2010, about 11:00 am, I am at my desk in the Sundance Institute Office, located on Varick Street, Lower Manhattan , New York . My phone vibrates, it does not show the number and being me, I refuse to pick it up, hoping that someone would leave a message and I would call them back! It stops vibrating, no message comes through. Five minutes later, the phone vibrates again, still no number, again, I refuse to pick it up and again no message left. An hour later, the phone vibrates again! This time, I start thinking the worst. "It must be from home! This must be bad news!..Oh God, I hope not...oh my God...my mother just went through an eye operation...Oh my God...please let this not be bad news... "Pick it up!" As if some other voice is speaking through me. I pick up.   "Hello, this is Asiimwe! "From the other side comes a strong British accent; "Deborah?"

"Yes, this is she." And I am thinking, no one in my family speaks with such a strong British accent! Now what is this?

"My name is Vera..." the voice says, "....and I am calling from the BBC."

I hesitate. Why would the BBC be calling me? As my thoughts are still racing, Vera interrupts me. "Do you have any idea why BBC would be calling you?"

I am about to say "NO. Not at all!", then, it clicks! The script I submitted a while back. That must be it! I rumble something to her...I can't quite remember what I said, but I did mention that I submitted a script to BBC. Vera laughs. Silence. I wait. We wait for either of us to break the silence. My heart in my throat, my veins popping out of my skin; she breaks the silence: "Congratulations Deborah! Your play Will Simith Look Alike won the BBC African Performance 2010 Playwriting competition!"

This wasn't a dream. This was real, I was talking to someone from the BBC telling me that my play won the 2010 competition!? That I get a financial award on top of my play being broadcast on BBC? As I am trying to absorb all this, she says, "I should also mention that Wole Soyinka was the Judge of the competition and he is the one who got to select your play!" 

Wole Soyinka! A man whose writing was introduced to me in my secondary school days, he was one of the people whose work influenced me to write plays!! The thought of Wole Soyinka holding my script and actually reading it  thrills me.

I am so thankful because God has caused me to meet amazing people on my journey as a playwright. I have been privileged to work and be mentored by wonderful, giving, loving individuals. The support I have received from my former professors, some of my employers and colleagues has been extremely invaluable and I am forever grateful to God for directing me to this path."

This is not the first time that Ms. Asiimwe is earning recognition for her drama-tic prowess. Early this year, her play, Forgotten World, premiered at The School of Theater at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) where she attained her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Writing for Performance. A few months later, her new play, Cooking Oil, about an East African girl and foreign aid meant for her village, got a public reading in Manhattan . This play will in fact be staged at the National Theatre in Kampala later this year. I'll keep you updated.