Wilma Theatercast
A place for conversation around the Tony Award-Winning work of Philadelphia's Wilma Theater
Wilma Theatercast
Setting the Stage – Myths, Masculinity, and Basketball with Inua Ellams
How do myths shape our understanding of masculinity, power, and sport? In this premiere episode of Wilma Theatercast, hosts Dwight Dunston and Toby Fraser dive into the world of The Half-God of Rainfall with its creator, Inua Ellams. This genre-defying play blends Yoruba mythology, Greek gods, and the raw energy of basketball to tell a story of gods, grief, and generational resilience.
In this conversation, Inua shares his artistic journey, the intersections of poetry and playwriting, and the challenges of writing about complex themes like gender, violence, and cultural memory. From flaming basketballs to hip-hop’s influence on his storytelling, this episode explores how language, rhythm, and performance create a mythic world that speaks to today’s audiences.
Guest: Inua Ellams
Born in Nigeria and based in London, Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright, and performer whose work spans theatre, literature, and visual art. His plays include Barber Shop Chronicles, Three Sisters, and The Half-God of Rainfall. He is the founder of The Midnight Run and R.A.P Party and has received numerous honors, including an MBE for Services to the Arts. His work explores themes of identity, migration, and masculinity with a poetic and political lens.
Resources & References from the Episode:
📖 Books & Plays by Inua Ellams: https://www.inuaellams.com/
- The Half-God of Rainfall
- Barber Shop Chronicles
- The Actual (Poetry Collection)
🎭 Influences & Themes Discussed:
🎤 Other Works & Events by Inua Ellams:
- The Midnight Run – A creative, city-based adventure: https://www.themidnightrun.com/
- R.A.P Party – A poetry and hip-hop fusion: https://www.inuaellams.com/the-rap-party/
🎟️ The Half-God of Rainfall is playing at The Wilma Theater live in Philadelphia from February 11th – March 2nd, 2025, and streaming for a limited time in March. Visit WilmaTheater.org for tickets and more information.
📱 Follow us on social media:
@wilmatheater
🎭 The Tony Award-winning Wilma Theater joyfully produces the Wilma Theatercast as part of our Accessible Productions Initiative. This program brings community partners into the rehearsal process and invites them to respond creatively to the work. This program is made possible with support from the William Penn Foundation.
Welcome to Wilma Theatercast, Cast, a place for conversation about the Tony award winning work of Philadelphia's Wilma Theater. I'm Dwight Dunston.
>> Toby Fraser:And I'm Toby Fraser. Together we're here to guide you through the epic tale of the Half-God of Rainfall by Inua Ellams. It's running at the Wilma Theater and this play is a stunning fusion of Yoruba and Greek mythologies with just a dash of NBA magic. It's packed with heart power and some serious questions about masculinity, culture, and what it means to belong.
>> Dwight Dunstan:For this episode, I got to sit down with the playwright himself during his visit to Philadelphia in January.
>> Inua Ellams:So we got back to our home court and the boys didn't want to go home. And out of frustration, one of them set the basketball on fire.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Since this is our first episode, I was thinking we could introduce ourselves with maybe some of that same epic energy that, uh, is this play like, let's make it theatrical. Let's make it big. Let's make. I don't know, let's just try.
>> Toby Fraser:I think I would love to see how you do it.
>> Dwight Dunstan:I could go first, but I got a feeling that you might be ready and up for the task.
>> Toby Fraser:Dwight Dunson, full of thoughts and feelings today.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Oh, I always got them.
>> Toby Fraser:Okay, okay, okay, okay. I'll try it. I'll try it. I'll try it all. Uh, right. My name is Toby. I am from a small village, literally called a village, where I grew up, the village of Clinton, New York, in the lands of central New York, living under the reign of the evil empire of capitalism. Clinton was a charming little village, especially for people who had money and were white. And there were many of those rich white people where I grew up. I am a CIS white man, but didn't grow up on the moneyed side of things. And so I remember being a kid and the house being filled with tension around can we afford this or can we afford that? Or how are the neighbors going to think about this? And trying to figure out what to do about it. And it wasn't quite as stark as like, uh, a peasant versus nobility, if I'm going to go towards the epicness. But we were definitely the poor kids in the rich town. There are so many characters and creatures from mythology that seemed like they played a part. But when I think about the Half-God God of Rainfall and basketball in particular, I really get an image of those hyenas from the Lion King just come cackling around behind me laughing, making fun of how really not good I was at basketball really not very coordinated I think is uh, a word you could use. So we had some bullies, some tough moments in that space. Before too long I was able to leave that little village. I truly have never gone back to visit. My family moved away and my travels took me around the whole of these United States, around the world, some really going on a quest to find fulfillment under this reign of capitalism that we still have. I think sadly we had a ah, tragedy, tragic part of it. In 2008 I lost a friend to gender based violence. And that really set me on a path of getting involved in working to stop gender based violence, working on masculinity and men and what it means to be a man and how many of those things lead us to cause pain and violence. But how that's not the only story and that there's other stories that we can, we can find and tell and maybe I'll pause there. I'm sure there's more but I'm curious about where you're at and even though you're not going first. Dwight Dunston.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Wow.
>> Toby Fraser:What's your epic tale?
>> Inua Ellams:Yes.
>> Dwight Dunstan:And thank you for sharing your epic tale, Toby. Our lives crossed later in life and.
>> Toby Fraser:Mhm.
>> Dwight Dunstan:I'm so grateful that they did. And my quest begins in the kingdom of West Philadelphia where there were artists, poets and great thinkers and amazing athletes that came out of this epic land. I grew up as the middle child in a two parent household from a very early age realized I loved getting to know people and learn about people from a very early age. Since I was three years old I've.
>> Toby Fraser:Played basketball, got little baby guns out on the court.
>> Dwight Dunstan:This is true. So that is a place where I got to explore my competitive side being on the team.
>> Inua Ellams:Mhm.
>> Dwight Dunstan:My father was the coach and there was a lot of beauty and complexity with that. But one of the things that I really learned from that time is the power of working as a collective towards a goal. Today I do a lot of work with conflict transformation and helping groups to really work well together. You know a lot of that stems from my early days on the court with my dad there, coaching with my peers, playing the sport, pivotal sport in my life m and in the life of our main character Demi. One of the things that really was a turning point in my life which also has to do with with tragedy. I lost a friend when I was in college. He passed away. He drowned accidentally. Oh my God. It was that moment. It was this turning point moment. And perhaps this happens in everyone's lives where there's these moments where you get to choose, uh, how you're going to react to the tragedy. And really it was a pivotal moment where I decided that while I have breath, while I have the ability to do so, that I will work as best as I can to lighten the load, make life easier for those around me. Stranger, someone I know well, that was really the catalyst for, I say a lot of the work that I do today as well. So, uh, that's a little bit about me. Thank you for listening.
>> Toby Fraser:Thank you for sharing that. So before we get to that interview, let me tell you just a little bit about our playwright. Born in Nigeria in 1984, Inua Ellams is a writer and curator. He is a cross disciplinary artist, an internationally touring performer, a poet, playwright, screenwriter, graphic artist and designer. He has published several books of poetry and his first play, The 14th Tale, was awarded a Fringe first at the Edinburgh International Theater Festival in 2023. He was honored with an MBE for services to the arts and an honorary doctorate from the University of the Arts, London. He is currently touring Search Party and Evening with an Immigrant and working on several commissions across stage and screen. So let's get to that interview.
>> Dwight Dunstan:What's it like being you today?
>> Inua Ellams:What today?
>> Dwight Dunstan:Today.
>> Inua Ellams:Specifically today or this moment?
>> Dwight Dunstan:This here. This is all we got.
>> Inua Ellams:Okay.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Right here or if you want to go, if you want to time travel.
>> Inua Ellams:That's why I said today.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Yeah, yeah.
>> Inua Ellams:Um, what am I thinking of right now? I haven't spoke to my girlfriend properly in two or three days. We have some tension we need to iron out. So as a boyfriend, I'm feeling a little bit anxious. I'm still jet lagged even though I left two days after Christmas. I'm going back on Sunday. I'm sort of looking forward to being home, but I have to come back late February so I'm already dreading having to adjust my body clock again. I have a lot of work to do in New York in the next couple of days. Right now I think I am, um, hungry and I need to lie down. I've slept for four hours tonight, so that's it. But I'm feeling right now inspired and confident in the team surrounding this play and I want to come and see what Fimi has to say about it. Yeah, beautiful.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Mhm. Thank you for that holding, all of that, the boyfriend role, the hungry, the tired, the sleep and inspiration. M and I'm not going to keep you here long, but maybe all together, just while we're. So as we drop down into this Interview. Would you be open to taking a breath together?
>> Inua Ellams:Yeah.
>> Dwight Dunstan:And then I got the first set of questions. So anybody who wants to join us, invite y'all to as well. We will do this. We'll breathe in for four and out for six. So let's take a breath in and out. Um, thank you. Another way I like to start spaces conversations is through a practice of dedications. So I'm wondering if, as we settle into this conversation, if there's one person you want to dedicate this conversation to.
>> Inua Ellams:Mhm.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Who's not here in this space, who would that be?
>> Inua Ellams:Um, I think his name is Tim. Never met him before. I was just on Threads and a lady, she put a post up about the various ways in which the word rape is eradicated or, uh, the various euphemisms that are used. You know, for instance, sex with a minor or coercive acceptance. She said, this is how these words have been used to sanitize the crime. And she says, whichever way you describe it, it is what it is. And then straight after that, this man called Tim said, as a man, it makes me nervous to see these various interpretations because there are times when I've told people I've been sexual with women that I'm not feeling in the mood, but they still beg, or they put their hand in my lap, or they put my hands and then they ask and ask and ask, and I eventually give in. And so I'm not sure if it's different. And lots of people were saying, uh, it's the same, it's the same thing. And I said, thanks for being brave enough to say this in public, but I think it is the same and I hope you're okay. So, Tim, I've never met him, but this is just a conversation I saw literally a minute ago on my phone. So that's who I'm thinking about. And the various types of masculinities or the gender. The gender norms that he's struggling with and then trying to talk about. Mhm. Yeah.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Thank you. We have Tim. And I'm gonna dedicate this convo to. I had a nephew born 21 days ago.
>> Inua Ellams:Oh, wow.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Arlo Sterling Dunstan Jones.
>> Inua Ellams:That's a great name.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Yeah, it's epic. My sister and her wife welcomed. Welcome little Arlo in. And we have the same middle name.
>> Inua Ellams:Okay.
>> Dwight Dunstan:So I don't have any kids of my own, but she gave this young person my name, part of my name. And yeah, we did this whole project on Saturday where we did this activity. I don't know if they talked about draw a bridge. Um, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a way. And I got to see the play reading for the first time yesterday.
>> Inua Ellams:Okay.
>> Dwight Dunstan:And, yeah, so much of what we did Saturday and so much of seeing your words come to life has me thinking about, you know, what I want to swear to the far star. You know, there's that point in play where there's. There's this. This. Yeah. This intention I want to cast, you know, this forward prayer that this. This young person, this young boy grows up in a world where we're that much closer to ending violence. Gender violence. Yeah. Violence against all bodies. Uh, in terms of when it comes to intimacy, sexuality, sex, and. Yeah. The ways that art can play that role, too. So we have. We have Tim and Arlo in this space together.
>> Inua Ellams:I want to also shout out boys called Arlo. One of my basketball boys, his name is Alex. His son is called Arlo. And I was at Dartmouth College last week running a few creative writing workshops. And the guy who was head of chauffeur and me from place to place. His son is called Arlo.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Yeah, three Arlo's, three Arlos.
>> Inua Ellams:Right?
>> Dwight Dunstan:Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah, we're flowing now. I have a question about basketball dads. Both either, but just any story that comes to mind. You got a basketball in your hand right now I'm curious if there's just any story that comes to mind about. About any of those things. Basketball dads. Basketball, either.
>> Inua Ellams:Dads. Uh, let me see. I mean, there's a lot I could say about basketball. So what about my dad related to basketball? Maybe. I don't think my dad ever played basketball in his youth. He liked that I was running around on courts and missing every shot. He just liked that I was athletic. God, uh, at least trying to be. But he never supported my dreams of being. Of being a basketball. Professional basketball player. Partially because I was terrible at the game. I was just enthusiastic. But, um, with basketball specifically, I have a long poem about this called Leather Comets. There was once in Ireland, where I played for the school team. We had an away game, and this was when I was the only black boy in my entire school was an away game. And in the opposing school's auditorium, I, um, was the only black boy in the court. And they were just shouting the most horrific racial slurs at me. We lost the game drastically. We got back onto the bus to coach to take us back to school, and all my boys were just silent and embarrassed. They were silent that we lost, but embarrassed that another school, another bunch of White boys could have treated me in ways come to be completely alien to them because they knew me and loved me. So we got back to our home court and the boys didn't want to go home. And out of frustration, one of them set the basketball on fire. And we chose to play with the flaming basketball. And instant instantly became this really joyous moment of just childlike, I don't know, exuberance, you know, because we were sort of saying, excuse my language, fuck you, to the game. But at the same time, we love this game. And now the basketball is burning as if a comet. You know, let's just do what we can with it. Let's make this moment what it is. Let's claim it for ourselves. So we just played with the basketball, I think, as we tried to pass it amongst each other and then score a perfect point, you know, which we did. And only after that, we were washing our hands by the tap and all our palms were singed, but the water was cooling our, uh, skin. And it was this moment of just love and pain, you know, just back to back. So of, uh, the various crazy things that happened in Ireland in those three years that I lived there, that's the one I hold the most.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Wow.
>> Inua Ellams:Yeah.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Wow. Yeah. And just thinking about that. I mean, there's so much in there. Thank you for that story. I'm thinking about that love and pain, and I'm thinking about the Half-God God of Rainfall which has a lot of love and pain in it. And, uh. Yeah. How as you were writing the play or as you've seen it come to life, you got to see a rehearsal tonight, you know, when. Yeah. How does love and pain. How did you write love and pain to it. Into it. What was your process around that? What do you want the audience to do with that love and pain after they. They witnessed the play?
>> Inua Ellams:Yeah. The play took about seven years to write I had the idea of Demi, who was someone this not dissimilar to me, except he could do everything that I could, that I could not do. Sorry. I wanted someone with superhuman abilities and then beginning this character loosely based on myself, to giving him superhuman father, which was Zeus, to researching Zeus as a father figure and realizing everything Disney had told me about Zeus was in stark contrast to the Zeus of mythology, the Zeus of true Greek history and mythology and culture, and then thinking that Zeus cannot be my father, me inua, uh, therefore, he cannot be Demi's father. But thinking, I've seen both things in the world. I can't sanitize that. I Can't remove that from my memory. So I need to write a story where both things happen and occur, and then the difficulties of engaging with that, of researching into sexual abuse and rape culture and masculinity. It took seven years of writing and rewriting and interviewing friends of mine who had been victims of sexual abuse and one of them who had forgiven her abuser and really trying to understand how she could do that, what it meant to her, and, um, trying to relate those lessons to Modupe's story arc. Could she forgive Zeus? What would that mean? Could Zeus ever be deserving of forgiveness? What would that look like? Is he capable of even reaching that level of self awareness? And if Medupe sees that and then chooses to go another route, what are the repercussions of her? So 7 years of writing and reading and listening and tearing up the story again. Yeah, it was a hard process. I completely changed as an individual in the ways I saw the world, the ways I spoke to people, the stories that I've written ever since. Completely changed. Yeah.
>> Dwight Dunstan:M. Yeah, it's, uh. I'm just thinking about the number seven. I don't know, maybe somebody knows this fact, but I heard something about seven years in our taste buds or something. Does anybody know that? Taste buds.
>> Inua Ellams:How it takes seven years for every cell in the body to replace.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Replace. Right, right. So that. The fact that that was the length of time.
>> Inua Ellams:Yeah.
>> Dwight Dunstan:That took you to write this, and then you. Like you said afterwards, you were. You were changed. You, m. Move different in the world.
>> Inua Ellams:Yeah.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Yeah, that's. That's really powerful. I want to.
>> Inua Ellams:I'm, um.
>> Dwight Dunstan:I'm thinking about. I have sort of a twofold question, but I'm going to start with just like kind of the big question, like when you drop down into a more whole, liberated future, you know, what is that? What does that look like? What does that feel like? What does that sound like, a better world?
>> Inua Ellams:I don't know. I think it's almost inconceivable. And, uh, by that I mean there's this question in one of Octavia Butler's novels where she talks about how, you know, there's a saying about there's nothing new under the sun, but there are other suns. M. When I think of the future, I pray we live or we grow up under other suns. And I can't quite conceive of that because I've been tarred and tanned by this sun. Um, that all the traumas and the stories and the dark stories, this world. When I think of a future I hope the stories that I've written are redundant, that the lessons of my stories will feel dated and irrelevant, because that is what a better world looks like when my voice is no longer needed. You know, so when I think of the future, I think that's as far as I get. Everything else there'll be, you know, the kids will be all right. They'll take these stories, they'll rip it apart, throw the bits away they don't like and make something new. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. And I may not be alive to live in that reality, but I'd like to think that if I'm redundant, then that reality has come to being. Mhm. Two more questions.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Talk a little bit about the role, the role of music in this play in your life. You know, just getting to read, uh, about you, about your work, about your bio as a fellow hip hop artist. You know, there's a whole other side interview or just convo where we're talking about, yeah, the role hip hop and lyrics and words and poetry have played in our lives.
>> Inua Ellams:When I was a kid, I just listened to music my parents were playing. I didn't really, really care about music. It was just, I was too interested in Marvel comics and getting in trouble, you know, when we left and I listened to sort of popular Nigerian music, Nigerian music on the radio. When we Left Nigeria in 1996, we arrived in London, I think maybe weeks before or after Tupac died. And I walked in school and the whole school was mourning Tupac, and I knew nothing about him. So I just performed. I tried to match their sorrow by saying, oh my God. Yeah, it's really hard being a thug. Uh, I didn't know anything. And then I had a friend called Jack who had a mobile phone, and we were walking through his neighborhood and someone ran past and jacked his phone, just ripped it from his hand and sped into the distance. And suddenly a line from Tupac's Changes popped in. Don't let them jack you up M Pimp slack pimp slap you up. They get jealous when they see you with your mobile phone. And suddenly this artist who I knew nothing about his lyrics, had just suddenly felt not just accurate, but specific to my present moment. So I went home, I listened to Changes and I thought, oh my gosh, this is incredible. And then I listened to more of his discography and I thought, oh my God. So rappers aren't just swearing. There's something else happening here. And then I moved to Ireland, where the entire basketball team were huge hip hop fans. And because of that, we were just always listening to hip hop. And I had a poetry school teacher who was also my basketball coach. Therefore, on the court, he was demanding excellence from us, demanding excellence from us in his poetry class. And my basketball team were in my poetry class. And we're listening to everything, you know, best of 90s hip hop. @ the same time, we were dissecting classic romantic poetry. And suddenly both things began to exist in my head. Classical poetry, contemporary African, American lyricism, and basketball. So both things, this fire for both was sparked almost at the same time. And slowly it just drew me to lyrics, to dissecting, to listening to poetry, to precision. And then I began to fell in love with it. But even then, I don't think I really started to write poetry until I stopped playing basketball. And all of the rhythms from the game and from hip hop had somehow settled into my very core. And I was writing poetry, I was finding, and I was just stealing internal rhyme schemes from all the hip hop artists and the work that I'd been consuming and. Yeah, and that's where, um, poetry came from. And writing the Half-God God of Rainfall was really, really interesting because I borrowed the form from Dante, who wrote the Divine Comedy and he has 10 syllable lines, but that found too restrictive for me for the stories I was trying to tell. So I made it 12 syllables line long. But he almost exclusively wrote the Divine Comedy with end rhymes at the end of each line. And when I was trying to do so with this story, it felt way too belabored. And I felt like the audience were listening for the end of the rhyme, which sort of stripped joy and discovery from the text. So then I remembered that hip hop is full of internal rhyme schemes. And I could just do that. Like, screw what Dante was doing. What does contemporary poetic sound like? And once I did so, it allowed me to do so many things to do with the voice, um, and the accent and the dialogue of the characters, but also how to introduce trash talking into the. You know, just freed so much I could play again. Wow.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Yeah, it's. I wasn't even aware of that, but watching this, watching it yesterday. Yeah, there's such a rhythm to everything that. To how the characters are speaking, how they're interacting with one another, the trash talking. Those moments crack me up. Having been on both sides of some trash talking on the court, I'm so grateful for this time. My last question is, just as you look out into the world, as you think about the times we're in, these are some times that we're in we're being asked, I think, as a species, to really get it together, to really learn how to take care of one another, take care of our. More than humankin. There's so much that I look out and see that gives me hope, that gives me inspiration. And I'm just curious, when you. When you look out into the world or, uh, look into your own life, what's been nourishing you? What's been giving you hope?
>> Inua Ellams:Wow. What is giving me hope? I think you're in a better place than I am. And by that I mean all I see are problems that I'm trying to solve. You've been today, earlier, we're having a conversation about capitalism, what that's doing to the art of storytelling. We let entertainment supersede the story, and then we lose what is essential, the human connection. We throw too much jazz hands around the story rather than letting the story speak. I'm trying to figure out how to keep that out of the stories I'm trying to tell. Maybe the challenge of artistic creation is still nourishing me because there is still a fire to attempt to engage with these problems rather than to allow myself to be consumed by them. So there is that. I have five nephews and nieces. They always nourish me whenever I come to my flat. And I have to try and look after all five of them. It's a little bit like herding cats. And not just normal cats, Nigerian cats. So it's a little crazier. What else? I have a WhatsApp, uh, group with four friends. We call ourselves the Dream Team. None of us play basketball. You know, this year we've committed to once every three months just finding time to just be with. With, uh, one another. Not to structure what we do. Not to say, let's go and watch a film. And then the film becomes the focus of the thing. Just unstructured hangouts, which is something that has been eradicated, I feel, from contemporary society because of, you know, living in cosmopolitan environment or, you know, the tyranny of a clock. So I'm looking forward to spending time with the Dream Team. Yeah, that's what's nourishing me at the moment.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Beautiful.
>> Inua Ellams:Yeah.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Any last things you want to say before we wrap about the play, about being in Philly?
>> Inua Ellams:It's really great to be here. I've only heard of Philadelphia, uh, and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. You know, I've also heard about it as the birthplace of so many different contributions to African American music. So it's great. I feel Like I'm on historical ground here. So it's really great to be here. Yeah. I just hope you guys come out and listen to the story and take some of its lessons and tear up the story and um, tell um, it anew. Tell it to who you want and you find resonances with all of the characters and their entry point into the things that we discuss the story. Yeah. Mhm. That's it. I hope you enjoy it.
>> Dwight Dunstan:On behalf of everyone in this room, to the Tim and Arlos of the world, to the nieces and nephews, I'm glad that you're continuing to let the fire be in your hand. That both the proverbial and the. The very real from that, that, that wow story of lighting it on fire and that. Yeah. You keep your pen right in, you keep your brilliance shining and just. Thank you.
>> Inua Ellams:Thank you, thank you.
>> Dwight Dunstan:M. Wow. What an incredible conversation.
>> Toby Fraser:I am carrying a lot from that and in particular I think next time you come to see the Half-God God of Rainfall you should really think about that piece of love and pain.
>> Inua Ellams:Mhm.
>> Toby Fraser:Where you see it, where you feel it, how it's going to impact your life after seeing this incredible performance at the Wilma Theater. And that brings us to an end. That's episode one.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Episode one, the Half-God God of Rainfall is playing at the Wilmer Theater Live in Philadelphia February 11th through March 2nd and streaming for a limited time in March. Visit WilMatheater.org for tickets and more information and follow us on social media.
>> Toby Fraser:@Wilmatheater Theatre Wilma Theatercast cast is joyfully produced by the Tony award winning Wilmer Theatre as part of our Accessible Productions initiative. A program that brings community partners into rehearsal process and invites them to make creative respons responses to the work. This program is made possible with support from the William Penn Foundation.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Thanks so much y'all. See you next episode.
>> Toby Fraser:Let's go.
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