Danai Gurira

Appearing Saturday

Actress and playwright Danai Gurira stars as one of the most popular characters in AMC’s critically-acclaimed original series “The Walking Dead.” Based on one of the most successful comic books of all time, “The Walking Dead” follows a group of survivors who are searching for a safe home after a zombie apocalypse. In the season two finale, Gurira’s heroine ‘Michonne’ bursts onto the scene as the mysterious zombie, slave-keeping sword slayer. “The Walking Dead” is the first original cable series ever to end the broadcast television season as the number one show in delivery for adults 18-49.

Gurira also starred in the multiple-award winning film “The Visitor,” opposite Richard Jenkins, in which she played a Senegalese immigrant in New York trying to survive while her illegal immigrant boyfriend is detained by the U.S. government. Other film credits include “Three Backyards” and “Restless City.” Her television credits include roles on “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” “Lie to Me” as well as a recurring role on the HBO David Simon series “Treme.”

An award-winning playwright, her recent play “The Convert” (Stavis Award) is an historical drama set in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Part of a trilogy Gurira is writing about her native country’s coming of age, the play ran at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. in 2013. Gurira is also a Hodder Fellow at Princeton and a commissioned playwright with Yale Rep. She is co-founder of Almasi (Al-ma-see), a Zimbabwean American Dramatic Arts Collaborative Organization. Their mission is to instill professional values, skills and practices in the Zimbabwean Dramatic Arts through education and collaboration with professional American dramatic artists and artistic institutions.

Gurira was born in the U.S. and raised in Zimbabwe. She earned an MFA in theatre from NYU after moving back to the U.S. Her initial success was as the co-lead of “In the Continuum” (a play she co-created and co-wrote while in the acting program at NYU.) She received numerous accolades including an Obie, the Outer Circle Critics John Gassner Award, the Global Tolerance Award (Friends of the United Nations) and the Theater Hall of Fame Honors. Gurira also received the Helen Hayes Award (Woolly Mammoth). She subsequently received a grant for research in Liberia and Sierra Leone which resulted in her second play “Eclipsed”—the story of women abductees trying to survive during that region’s devastating civil war. Gurira won Best Playwright at the NAACP Theater Awards and Best New Play at Helen Hayes Awards. And, on Broadway, Gurira starred Bartlett Sher’s award winning revival of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” She also earned the Actor’s Equity Callaway Award for her performance as Isabella in the 2011 Shakespeare in the Park production of “Measure for Measure.”