ROTIMI AGBABIAKA
Actor, Singer, Director, Writer, Teaching Artist
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, I moved to Katy, Texas at the age of fourteen and auditioned for my first play because my mom was late picking me up from school one day. I got cast in the pivotal role of "Hotel Clerk" in Douglas Carter Beane's As Bees In Honey Drown and have never looked back.
After studying English, Economics and Plan II at the University of Texas - Austin, I braved the frozen cornfields of the mid-west to earn an MFA in Acting from Northern Illinois University.
Upon graduating, I moved to sometimes-sunny San Francisco, where I've performed in a variety of venues--from historical musical revues (Beach Blanket Babylon) to local parks (with the San Francisco Mime Troupe) to museums (The DeYoung) to reknowned regional theatres (American Conservatory Theatre, Cal Shakes, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre) to treasured local companies (Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience) and on nightlife stages around the world (as alter ego, Miss Cleo Patois).
In recent years I've gotten to perform across the nation and Off Broadway with companies like Yale Repertory Theatre and Playwrights Horizons.
My solo play, Homeless, won Best Solo Performance at the SF Fringe Festival, my next solo, Type/Caste, received the Theatre Bay Area award for Outstanding Solo Performance, and my latest solo, MANIFESTO, has been turned into a film.
In 2018 I wrote the musical Seeing Red, with Joan Holden and Ira Marlowe, which was produced by the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe and toured Northern California in the summer of 2018.
I am directing the upcoming world premiere of Adrienne Price's The Red Shades: A Trans Superhero Rock Opera at Z Space, write articles for Theatre Bay Area , and teach theatre at the college and high school level with institutions like Yale School of Drama, Bennington College, Middlebury College, Southern Illinois University, San Francisco Shakespeare Company, Each One Reach One, Word for Word, and the SF Mime Troupe, where I am a Collective Member
In 2022 I joined the faculty at Stanford University, where I teach courses in acting and solo performance.
Photo by Aleksander Dragicevic