Mfoniso Udofia

Since fall 2024, theaters around Boston have been hosting the nine-play Ufot Family Cycle by playwright Mfoniso Udofia. The fifth installment, “Kufre n’ Quay,” is performed almost entirely by Black and brown Boston Arts Academy students, many appearing in a professional production for the first time.

“Why let me go?” is a question no daughter should have to ask her mother. But young Nigerian Iniabasi Ekpeyong has arrived in the USA, where she was born, to reunite with her mother, Abasiama Ufot. After giving birth to Iniabasi 30 years ago, Abasiama let her then-husband return to Nigeria with their newborn. 

A cluster of shimmering silver poles evokes the stand of trees where ancestors and living family members meet in “The Grove,” on stage at the Calderwood Pavilion of the Boston Center for the Arts through March 9 in a world premiere production by the Huntington Theater Company.

Playwright Mfoniso Udofia has been telling the stories of her characters in the Ufot family since 2009. Now, for the first time, her Ufot Family Cycle of nine plays will be performed consecutively at The Huntington over the course of two years.