Lupita Nyong’o Plays In Manhattan

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o will make her New York stage debut in September.

The Oscar winner for ‘12 Years A Slave’, who is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. will star in ‘Eclipsed’, described as a story of survival and resilience as a woman suffering through the Liberian civil war in post-colonial Africa. The play was written by ‘Walking Dead’ actress Danai Gurira and will be directed by South Africa Liesl Tommy. She is a native of Cape Town, South Africa and a graduate of Newton North High School and Trinity Repertory Conservatory.

“Danai Gurira has written a brilliant play, ripped from the headlines, that looks at the terrible conflicts in post-colonial Africa with an eye that is both incisive and deeply compassionate,” said the Public’s artistic director, Oskar Eustis, in a release. “A feminist reading of the Liberian Civil War, a war that was ended by women, Eclipsed is both heart-breaking and profoundly life-affirming. We are delighted to welcome the extraordinary Lupita Nyong’o to the Public in this vitally important play.”

Nyong’o will play ‘The Girl,’ who disrupts the fragile community of vulnerable women when she becomes the newest addition to a rebel’s officer’s harem. “’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,” according to the press release.

The play begins previews on Sept. 29 and officially opens on Oct. 14, 2015 and runs until Nov. 8.

We caught up with Lupita Nyongo earlier in July, speaking on behalf of elephants in Kenya.