Auntie Efua E CANNOT ON 21 JANUARY 1996, THE African world lost one of its most remarkable daughters of the 20th century: Dr. Efua Theodora Sutherland. 'Auntie Efua' is best known for her pioneering work as a cultural visionary and activist, her impact on society at once comprehensive and enduring. Teacher, research scholar, poet, dramatist, and social worker, she devoted her life to the building of models of excellence in culture and education, and to the training of young people who would carry her vision into the far future. Nana Born in Cape Coast on 27 June 1 924, she was named after her maternal Ama great-grandmother Nyankomo Her father, Harry Peter Morgue from the family of Chief Moore of Nsona Paado, Cape Coast, was a well- known teacher of English who once taught at Accra Academy Her mother, Harriet Efua Maria Parker, was from the royal families of Gomua Brofo and Anomabu, very humble and difficult early life; her eventual greatness may be more of a personal achievement than an inherited family fortune. Her young mother died in a lorry accident at age 1 8, leaving 5- month old Efua in the care of her g r a n d m o t h er Araba Mansa, whose personal sacrifice and example of hard work as a baker ensured Efua's and survival the provided single most important impact later on her Theodora Sutherland particularly the branch founded by Barima Ansaful at Gyegyano, Cape Coast. Despite her royal birth, Efua had a development into a most resourceful personality. Theodora Olivia Morgue, as Efua Afruan Quarterly en the Arts Veil I NO 3 became known, began her primary education at the Government Girls School and later moved to St. Monica's, both in Cape Coast. She took the Standard Seven examination while she was still in Standard Six, and did so well she won a scholarship to the St. Monica's Training College at Ansate Manpong. St Monica's was founded and run by Anglican Sisters of the Order of the Holy Paraclete, based in Yorkshire, England. The nuns in both Cape Coast and Mampong had such significant influence on the young Efua that she seriously considered becoming a nun and would have gone to England for convent training had her grandmother not intervened. At 18, she began teaching at senior primary level but soon joined the staff of St. Monica's Training College. In 1947, after five-and-half years of teaching, she went to England where she studied for a B.A. degree at Homerton College, Cambridge University. She spent another year at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, specialising in English linguistics, African languages, and drama. Back in Ghana in 1950, she returned to St. Monica's but later transferred to Fijar Secondary School and then to Achimota School. In 1954, Efua married William Sutherland, an African American who had been living in Ghana and worked from 1951 -57 to help found what is now Tsito Secondary School in the Volta Region. Efua spent part of the period in Tsito to help with the foundation work. Efua and Bill had three children, Esi Reiter, Ralph Gynan, and Muriel Amowi, who have since become a university research fellow, an architect, and a lawyer respectively. It is against this family and educational background that we. must assess the unusual impact of Efua Sutherland's public life as educator, creative artist, and activist social visionary. She is best known as a dramatist, but her work in this area was always informed by a compelling vision of a better society, and she chose appropriate cultural education as the bestfoundation on which African Quarterly on the Am Vol.11 NO 5 such society could be established. Like many others, she could have used her considerable talents and skills in the promotion of a spectacular individual career. Instead, she chose to share her gifts with society at large by investing her energies in the building of model programmes and institutions, and in the training of a future generation. frequently cited projects, the Atwia Experimental Community Theatre Project, is recognised world-wide as a pioneering model for the now popular Theatre for Development. Araba: The Village Story is a major documentary film done in 1 967 by the American television network ABC to record the success of this unique experimental project. Efua Sutherland's reputation as the founder and mother figure behind the national theatre movement may best be measured by the many key institutions and programmes she was instrumental in bringing into being. She was the prime mover in the founding of the Ghana Society of Writers (1957). A year later, the Ghana Experimental Theatre launched under her Company was direction. She helped to found the Okyeame literary magazine in 1961. Through her pioneering research into Ghanaian oral traditions, she introduced onto the stage the unique dramatic form of Anansegoro, deriving its creative model from traditional story-telling drama. To provide an rehearsal and performance space for the emerging national theatre movement, she mobilised funds and supervised the building of the Ghana Drama Studio, ensuring that its design was in harmony with performance demands of African theatre practice. She founded Kusum Agoromba, 'a full-time drama company based at the Drama Studio and dedicated to performing quality plays in Akan.... in towns and villages all over the country.' She provided creative leadership to the Workers' Brigade Drama Group and to the Drama Studio Players. ideal In May 1963, Efua Sutherland became a Research Associate of the Institute of African Studies. As part of the move, she handed over the Drama Studio to the University of Ghana to be issued as 'an extension division of the School of Music, Dance and Drama.' Through the Drama Studio Programme and the Drama Research Unit of the Institute, Efua Sutherland worked with the late Joe de Graft and others to build the foundations of what was soon to become a model programme in drama and theatre studies and practice in Africa One of her most A particularly significant aspect of Efua Sutherland's work was the Children's Drama Development Project. This multi- year project focused on research into the cultural life of children in society, used the information gathered as a basis for writing, producing and publishing appropriate plays for children. Conferences, workshops and test productions organised as part of this project have left us with an important collection of plays for children, among them R.A. Cantey's Ghana Motion, Togbe Kwamuar's The Perpetual Stone Mill, Kwamena Ampah's Hwe No Yie, Koku Amuzu's The New Born Child and the Maid Servant, JoeManu-Amponsah's Gates to Mother, Kofi Hiheta's A Bench of Chances, and Kofi Anyidoho;s Akpokplo{Ewean