Oscar-winning actress, Lupito Nyongo, will make her New York stage debut this fall appearing in the Public Theater's new war drama, Eclipsed.
Classicalites will remember Nyongo for her outstanding work in 12 Years a Slave. She is also slated to appear in the latest installment of Star Wars: The Force Awakens this coming December. Star Trek director, J.J. Abrams, is directing this latest adaptation of a galaxy far, far away, and we cannot wait to see what Ms. Nyongo will add to the legendary saga. Nyongo was also rumored to have dated fellow Oscar winner, Jared Leto.
According to The New York Times, Eclipsed is "set in 2003 near the end of the civil war in Liberia, the play is about a group of women who are captives of rebels fighting the government."
The play is described as a "feminist reading of the civil war that is both heartbreaking and life-affirming" says Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater's artisitc director. This is not surprising considering the fact that the play was written by written by the Obie Award-winning playwright, Danai Gurira, who you surely know as the sword-wielding "Michonne" on the popular television series, The Walking Dead.
According to The Hollywood Reporter (THR), Eclipsed will begin previews on Sept. 29 before its opening on Oct. 14. The limited engagement will run through Nov. 8. The play will be directed by Liesl Tommy, who staged the play's premiere at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington in 2009. In his review of a production at Yale Repertory Theater that same year, Charles Isherwood wrote that the play "depicts the harsh realities of women's lives in a strife-torn African country with both a clear eye and a palpable empathy."
Watch Ms. Nyongo's Oscar-winning, beautiful performance in this clip from 12 Years a Slave below.
