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What Do You Get When You Cross Lupita Nyong'o, The Walking Dead's Michonne & A Pajiban Once Removed?

By Vivian Kane | Miscellaneous | August 18, 2015 |

By Vivian Kane | Miscellaneous | August 18, 2015 |



Disney’s D23 Expo was this past weekend, and while we think of the superhero and space movies as being heavily dominated by white dudes named Chris, the real revelation was the fact that Lupita Nyong’o seems to have been quietly crowned the new reigning Disney Queen. J.J. Abrams, who is directing her in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, referred to her as “apparently someone who is legally required to be in every Disney movie.” In addition to Star Wars, Nyong’o will also be voicing the wolf Rakshain The Jungle Book and starring in the Ugandan chess movie The Queen of Katwe. Basically, she’s going to be a big part of our movie-going lives over the next few years, and that’s awesome because she is the coolest.

Double Duty at Disney. #Disney #d23expo #StarWars #ForceAwakens #TheJungleBook @DisneyStudios

A photo posted by Lupita Nyong'o (@lupitanyongo) on

But there’s one project she’s going to be a part of that is maybe even more exciting, which is disappointing because it’s the one we’re all least likely to be able to see. Nyong’o, who was nabbed by Hollywood straight out of Yale, is making her New York theatre debut this fall in what sounds like the most badass of plays.

Eclipsed is “a feminist reading of the Liberian Civil War, a war that was ended by women.” While that description on its own sounds like a play I’m sure many of us would rally behind, check out the team putting it together. First of all, it’s being performed at the ever-edgy Public Theater, site of the first-ever run of Hair back in the day, and original home of the mega-hit Hamilton. Second, did you know that Danai Gurira (AKA The Walking Dead’s Michonne) is also a playwright?

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Well, she is. Because hey, the pen may be mightier than the sword, but she also should definitely keep using that sword.

Yet, somehow even more exciting than a pen-wielding Michonne is the fact that the play is being directed by Liesl Tommy, who has an impressive theatrical resume and is an Obie award winner and made news last year with her “revolutionary” immersive, multi-racial Les Miserables, but here’s what you really care about— SHE’S IN THE PAJIBA FAMILY. Because Liesl Tommy is sister to our very own beloved curmudgeonny TK.

So we’ve got a feminist war play, with a kickass star, a sword-wielding playwright, and an acclaimed director with that Pajiba blood in her. Oh, and here’s the actual synopsis:

Amid 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. 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.

Who’s up for a field trip to New York?