Deborah Asiimwe

Currently working as Specialist-Sundance East Africa, Deborah Asiimwe is a theatre practitioner from Uganda. She writes for stage, sometimes for radio and in the recent past started writing for screen. Her recent plays include Forgotten World, Cooking Oil, Appointment with gOD (recently featured in the HotINK festival) and Untitled, which have all received productions in the United States of America. Lagoma is Searching, You are that Man, and My Secret all received productions at the Uganda National Cultural Centre/National Theatre. Asiimwe’s interest in storytelling and performance started in childhood, in South Western Uganda. She was raised in an oral literature and story telling culture. Over the years, Asiimwe has professionally fortified her skills through education and training. Asiimwe is a 2006 recipient of a scholarship of merit in Writing For Performance from California Institute of the Arts, where she recently graduated with a Master in Fine Arts (MFA) degree. In 2006, she won the award for the overall best student at Makerere University in Uganda, where she pursued her Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama. As an African woman, Asiimwe’s works explore socio-political issues that affect developing countries like her own in particular (Uganda), and the whole of the African continent in general. She describes herself as a social action writer, with the aim of utilizing the power of writing and performance to uplift, inspire, challenge and transform society. Using storytelling, song and dance, her writing is deeply rooted in lived experiences and shared realities of silenced cultures. Asiimwe has participated in many artists’ gatherings and conferences, including, the annual Arts in the One World Conference (CalArts, Valencia, California), a project of The More Life: Cultural Studies and Genocide Initiative, a collaboration between CalArts and the Interdisciplinary Genocide Study Center in Kigali, Rwanda; the Women Playwrights International Conference (WPI) in the Philippines (2003); and is the 2003 Sundance Theatre Lab international observer, to mention but a few.

Shows participated in:
By the Banks of the Nile (2009 - 10) Playwright