Adipo Sidang’s play 'In the Seashell Hum' debuts May 15 at Kenya National Theatre

Award-winning playwright Adipo Sidang’ is returning to the stage with a production that promises to be as haunting as its title suggests: In the Seashell Hum.

Scheduled for its grand premiere on Friday, May 15, 2026, the play dives headfirst into the turbulent waters of mental health, a subject often whispered about but rarely confronted with such raw, poetic intensity.

To bring such a delicate narrative to life, the production has assembled a who’s who of the Kenyan creative industry:

Nick Ndeda (18 Hours)
Foi Wambui (Too Early For Birds)
Angela Mwandanda (County 49)
Ben Tekee (Njoro Wa Uba)
Gitura Kamau (Lusala)

Under the direction of Victor Gatonye and the production of Mudamba Mudamba, the play also boasts a sonic landscape crafted by the legendary Eric Musyoka (Decimal Media), serving as Sound and Music Director.

At the heart of the story is Baraka, a gifted and eloquent young man whose internal world is a vivid tapestry of hallucinations and paranoia. To the outside world, Baraka is a creative boy child navigating the mundane rhythms of daily life; to Baraka, his mind is a battlefield.

In the Seashell Hum explores the loudness within Baraka’s silence, painting a nuanced portrait of how mental illness ripples outward, affecting not just the individual, but the families and loved ones anchored to them. It specifically interrogates the unique pressures of the male experience, the boy child expected to remain stoic while his interior world unravels.

The production team, LIGALA/Agora Theatre, will host free activations, skits, and community discussions. these sessions focus on:

Redefining masculinity and the boy child experience.
Breaking the stigma surrounding men’s mental health.
The intersection of creativity and mental wellness.

Nairobi is only the first stop. Following its initial run, In the Seashell Hum is set to embark on a regional tour, bringing its vital message to:

Coastal Kenya: Mombasa and Malindi.
Rift & Lake Regions: Kisumu, Eldoret, and Nakuru.
Regional Capitals: Kampala, Uganda and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Adipo Sidang’ is an acclaimed Kenyan author and poet whose work often serves as a mirror to society. His novella A Boy Named Koko won the Canadian Burt Award for African Young Adult Literature, while his play Parliament of Owls has become a staple of the Kenyan education system as a secondary school set book. With In the Seashell Hum, Sidang’ shifts his lens from the political to the personal, exploring the solitary depths of the human condition.