Fresh off a sold-out run at The Public Theater last fall, Danai Gurira‘s critically-acclaimed play Eclipsed is heading to Broadway this February at the Golden Theater. In the meantime, the actress and playwright isn’t stopping anytime soon. She’s already getting ready for the run of her next play at Playwrights Horizons this spring, entitled Familiar.
Playwrights Horizons recently announced casting for Familiar, which will feature Ito Aghayere, Joby Earle, Melanie Nicholls-King, Roslyn Ruff, Harold Surratt, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Joe Tippett, and Tony Award winner Tamara Tunie (Spring Awakening). Rebecca Taichman is set to direct.
Previews are scheduled to begin February 12 with an opening night set for March 3 and run through March 27 at Playwrights Horizons’ Mainstage Theater. Familiar had its world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre in February 2014.
The synopsis is billed as:
It’s winter in Minnesota and a Zimbabwean family is preparing for the wedding of their eldest daughter (Ruff), a first-generation American. But when the bride insists on observing a traditional African custom, it opens a deep rift in the household. Rowdy and affectionate, Familiar pitches tradition against assimilation, drawing a loving portrait of a family: the customs they keep, and the secrets they bury.
Gurira has made it known that she is very interested in getting stories about women of color out there for the world to see. “I want to see women of African descent shine,” Gurira told “Elle” magazine in a recent interview. “I want to see them [in roles] that are intense, that are full, that are complex—that allow them to exercise their chops. I want women of color who are preparing for auditions to stop asking, ‘Where are the monologues? Where are my stories?'”
Tickets to Familiar aren’t yet on sale, but information regarding tickets and the show can be found at the official website , by phone at (212) 279-4200, or by visiting Ticket Central Box Office at 416 West 42nd St., Manhattan.
