MOJI Kareem's company Utopia Theatre are performing for the first time at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in their home city of Leeds tonight and tomorrow: an event with resonance and roots in York.

Moji gained a First Class degree in Theatre (Performance) from York St John University in 2011 and that year she was awarded the York Theatre Royal Graduate Prize for directing Eugene Ionesco’s The Shepherd's Chameleon.

She has since gone on to form Utopia Theatre, with fellow former York St John students involved too, after such experiences as spending a year in Nigeria. There she worked with the James Ene Henshaw Foundation in reviving and directing the African play This Is Our Chance: a collaboration that involved setting up a club for youths and introducing them to the rudiments of drama.

Now, Moji and Utopia – whose cast, director and writer are largely of Nigerian descent – are presenting Iyalode Of Eti, a bold African reinvention of John Webster's macabre revenge tragedy The Duchess Of Malfi, penned by Debo Oluwatuminu. "We create old and new plays and re-imagine classics in a way that demonstrate their contemporary relevance and appeal to a new audience and regular theatregoers," she says.

"We’re committed to producing excellent theatrical experiences that tell the stories of the African diaspora. The company synthesises African and Western performing traditions to celebrate the meeting of different cultures and presents productions on tour and in London, with programmes aimed at developing and promoting black, Asian and ethnic minority writers and performers."

Research and development work on Iyalode Of Eti was carried out by Moji's company at the Arcola Theatre in London last year, and after her meeting with West Yorkshire Playhouse director James Brining six months ago, the Playhouse came on board to stage the new play's premiere in the Barber Studio this week. Further performances have since been added at the Sheffield Crucible Studio on September 26 to 28 and Cast in Doncaster on September 29 and 30.

Moji had studied John Webster at York St John. "The Duchess Of Malfi was the first piece that I directed there in 2009, where I ended up having to play the lead role too," she recalls of the student production. "When I read the play, I found all these things that resonated with African culture and I was struck by how the musicality and poetry of the heightened language harked back to the African stories, chants and songs that I grew up with," she says.

"I was brought up with my grandmother in Nigeria in a place called Ibadan and I remember that she spoke using a lot of proverbs and what we describe in this country as 'wise sayings' – and you note that in Webster's play too. So with all the descriptions of nature, you are transported not to the world of Webster, but to the world of Africa."

Moji and Utopia are working with writer Debo Oluwatuminu for the first time on this adaptation of Webster's 1614 play. "It's amazing how everything can be transported to the traditional African religions from Webster's world and yet it's exactly the same story," says Moji.

"It's interesting how even now, when I pick up a newspaper from Nigeria or other African countries, or from Britain or Europe, or the Asian world, you see resonances in the treatment of women, the patriarchy, the corruption in that world.

"There's no loyalty in the world, just a shifting of sides as things suit people, and that resonates with Webster's play too, and we try to explore that even more in our play."

Utopia Theatre present Iyalode Of Eti/A Reimagining of The Duchess Of Malfi, Barber Studio, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, tonight and tomorrow at 7pm. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at wyp.org.uk