What we learn from Keith Muganza’s collapse on stage in the middle of the show.

During one of our performances of the play “The Alien Woman” which is a stage adaptation of the novel by Laury Lawrence Ocen, Keith Collapsed.

If you don’t already know Keith(Muganza), he is one of our superb performers at Dynamo and a very well-gifted young man, psychologist, lawyer, poet, basketballer, and an outstanding performer. He has played some of the most complicated roles which include Kent in Shakespeare’s King Lear and Indondo in Voice of the people by Okiya Okoiti on short notice, he is that good.

When Keith gets down to a role, he gives it his all and enjoys it too. So when he was given the role of Obina in this Masterpiece by Laury, he took it on and made it a point to deliver. What happened, is that since I was playing Omara, my scene was next, just after his scene with Magaret. The scene with Margaret is full of love; if someone falls on the ground, they might just be falling in love. This time however he had an Asthma attack, but I thought, he was enjoying the role and he fell in or because of love. He fell as he came from the stage to change and go back with me in our scene.

I feel saddened every time I remember that when I saw him fall, I shouted like I normally do for him to change quickly and we head out to the stage. I hard just made my shout when someone said Keith needs air. Just then I realized he might have not carried his inhaler.

We stopped the show and asked our audience if anyone had an inhaler because Obina needed it. We were so lucky that someone at the front had an inhaler and she saved the day.

What we learned

Keith loves what he does and so should we: Immediately when he got a sip of the inhaler and got back to “normal”, he ran to dress up and told me that we needed to keep the show going. We opened the curtain again and started from where we had stopped.

Always make sure your friend is equipped with his necessaries: I and almost everyone knew that Keith occasionally needed an inhaler but nobody cared to make sure that he had it on him before starting on the tough day full of performances. It should have been upon me as a leader and friend to make sure he was equipped.

We should be as strong as Keith: After his attack, he went back to the stage as the day had just begun even though it was 5 pm and he had been performing since 9 am non-stop. He had no excuse even when no one would have objected to any excuse from him.

We are an ensemble: However good you are, you need the rest of the team, if not to work with you on stage, to look out for you. Thank God, the team was there to help Dynamo get Keith back up.

We Love Keith: The way I kept asking him if he was fine, now know that I and many other people love this young man and I wish him a very long life. He has a lot of lives to touch with his many talents.

Asthma can be deadly: After I lost a friend Lyze Kyambadde to Asthma in 2017, I knew it was deadly, but because Keith is strong and you can hardly notice, I almost forgot about it, that will never happen again.

I have made it one of my goals to learn more about Asthma and how I can support friends and family to live better. You too can learn more by visiting the Makerere University Lung Institute here.

Also, we previously had the honor of producing Tunde Euba’s play INCONTROL Reloaded which was written with the sole purpose of creating awareness of Asthma in communities.

Written by
Arthur Kisenyi
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR