Tiger Lily Road

Shiza, Hope, and Anjola must put aside their differences if they wish to succeed in a Nollywood acting school. Shiza, Hope, and Anjola all enroll at Spotlight Academy, a school to teach them acting for Nollywood films, where two graduates have been promised large supporting roles in Desmond Elliott's new film. When they are assigned to do a scene together, it is a disaster because they dislike one another. Their instructor explains that in professional acting, you don't necessarily like your co-workers, even if you have to do love scenes with them, so she makes them do another assignment together. Eventually, the three become friends. Shiza is a law student because her father wants her to be, and she is nearly complete. She tells him that she is taking a computer programming course. but doesn't realize that her father is friends with the headmaster at the school she claims to be attending. Hope, who is not using her real name, is the daughter of a provisions seller and speaks a Pidgin English that the other students mock, especially Valerie. Anjola's fiance insists that she isn't good at anything and is constantly berating her. She meets a businessman who becomes interested in her, but discovers that she has a greater talent for marketing than acting. Hope, meanwhile, becomes very interested in one of her instructors, Sukky, who helps her to speak standard Nigerian English in the school building on weekends. —Scott Andrew Hutchins <scottandrewhutchins@yahoo.com>