Lupita Nyong’o is taking her Liberian-civil-war drama, “Eclipsed,” to Broadway.
After making her stage debut just two months ago, the Oscar-winning actress and the rest of her off-Broadway cast will make transition to the Great White Way early next year. The current run of Danai Gurira’s play will take a bow on November 29 at the Public Theater. The Broadway production will begin previews for its 17-week run on February 23, 2016, and officially open on March 6 at the Golden Theater.
Tickets at the Golden are on sale now.
Directed by Liesl Tommy at the Public Theater, “Eclipsed” centers on a quartet of women raped and held captive by a rebel leader during the chaos of the Liberian civil war.
“The captive wives of a rebel officer band together to form a fragile community — until the balance of their lives is upset by the arrival of a new girl,” reads the Public’s description of the play. “Drawing on reserves of wit and compassion, ‘Eclipsed’ reveals distinct women who must discover their own means of survival in this deeply felt portrait of women finding and testing their own strength in a hostile world of horrors not of their own making.”
“A feminist reading of the Liberian Civil War, a war that was ended by women,” noted Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, “’Eclipsed’ is both heart-breaking and profoundly life-affirming.”
The cast also includes Saycon Sengbloh, Akosua Busia and Zainab Jah.
Nyong’o will next appear on screen in “Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens” (out December 18). She will star in “Queen of Katwe,” Mira Nair’s tale of a Ugandan chess champion.
Gurira co-stars on AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and has won an Obie Award for her earlier play “In the Continuum.” Other women playwrights of color recently to make Broadway are Lydia R. Diamond’s “Stick Fly” and Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop” in 2011, Regina Taylor’s “Drowning Crow” in 2004, Suzan Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog” in 2002 and Lorraine Hansberry’s classic “Raisin in the Sun.”
