On eve of 20th Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, Rwandan Actor Performs One-Man Show

UK-based Rwandan actor Ery Nzaramba will premiere his one-man show SPLIT/MIXED at this year's edition of New York's United Solo Festival 2013. The play is a coming-of-age tale about a boy growing up in Rwanda in the early '90s.

In "Split/Mixed portrait of an artist and Rwanda", the protagonist Eddy (portrayed by Ery Nzaramba) grows up in a safe, comfortable, middle-class environment. Though, Eddy's family runs into deepening financial difficulties, his parents manage to send him to the prestigious Belgian school of Kigali. He and his friends have a taste of fame when their band wins a music contest that inaugurates the launch of the new Rwandan Television. All changes when the president's plane is shot down on 6thApril 1994.

SPLIT/MIXED is a look at the perversity of war through the eyes of a boy and a revealing portrait of a country caught in a fratricidal war. Eddy must deal with the effects of tragedy in his family, and of politics, class, tribalism and bigotry of his background, to start becoming a true artist.

About Ery Nzaramba

Ery Nzaramba is a Rwandan actor living and working in the UK. SPLIT/MIXED is his first written work for stage and mirrors his own life story. He fled Rwanda with his family in 1994 and they eventually settled in Belgium. In a country divided along linguistic and cultural lines, Ery did his high school in French speaking Wallonia and went to university in Dutch speaking Flanders. He went on to work for telecom firm Alcatel Bell for a year before deciding to turn his weekly drama class into a full time occupation. He quit and was offered a place at the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels. Two years later, halfway through his course, he moved to the UK where he'd been offered a place at the Birmingham School of Acting. Ery will guest star in ITV's three part drama PREY in 2014.

Ery's artistic influences are diverse but he cites James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dario Fo's Mistero Buffo and Zimbabwean author Dambudzo Marechera as key inspirations toSplit/Mixed.

Ery Nzaramba is performing Split/Mixed on Saturday 16 November at 2 pm, at the UNITED SOLO FESTIVAL, Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.