Ifeoma Fafunwa is a celebrated Nigerian-American theatre maker, playwright, director, and creative activist based in Lagos, whose work in performance art has become a powerful force for gender equality and social change. Educated at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and trained in performing arts at Dorsey Studios and USC, she originally practised interior architecture and worked in advertising across the U.S.

In 2003, she returned to Nigeria and turned her focus to creative activism. She founded iOpenEye Africa Foundation to produce socially impactful theatre, empower women and youth, and facilitate open dialogue through storytelling and workshops. Her most acclaimed work, HEAR WORD! Naija Woman Talk True, is a dynamic collection of monologues, songs, and dance rooted in real stories from Nigerian women, staged since its 2014 debut at the MUSON Centre in Lagos, and later internationally in Cambridge (Harvard), the American Repertory Theatre, Edinburgh International Festival, Tate Modern, UN CSW, and beyond, reaching over 120,000 live audience members.

Her talent spans multiple disciplines; she directed The Vagina Monologues and produced original works like Eggs & Fleas, Love & Recession, and Digging for Gold. Her work was Nigeria’s cultural submission at the London 2012 Olympics, featured at LIFT, and she’s been a fellow at prestigious institutions, including the Radcliffe Institute (Harvard), Aspen Global Leadership Network, and MIT Media Lab.

Ifeoma’s creative activism has earned numerous accolades: she was named among the “12 Artists Who Changed the World in 2019,” received the McNulty Catalyst Prize (2020), was listed among Access Bank’s 100 Most Influential Women in Nigeria (2018), and honoured as a Cultures of Resistance awardee.

Through her visionary leadership at iOpenEye Africa and her transformative works like HEAR WORD!, Ifeoma continues to leverage theatre as a platform for empowerment, gender equality, and social transformation in Nigeria and around the world.