THE CONVERT by THE WALKING DEAD's Danai Gurira Receives Bay Area Premiere at MTC, 2/19–3/15

Marin Theatre Company begins 2015 with the Bay Area premiere of The Convert, which marks the Bay Area debut of award-winning Zimbabwean-American playwright Danai Gurira, running Feb 19-March 15. MTC's artistic director Jasson Minadakis directs this play about a young woman in Southern Africa at the turn of the 19th century who is wrestling with the ramifications of English colonization on the Shona People, her family and herself. It's a "remarkably compelling ride that races to a dramatic conclusion the likes of which will stun the audience to the core" (DC Metro Arts). MTC's production features the return of Bay Area actors L. Peter Callender (The Whipping Man, Circle Mirror Transformation), Elizabeth Carter (Beggar's Holiday, The Crucible) and Omoze Idehenre (Seven Guitars), as well as DC-based actors Jefferson A. Russell and Katherine Renee Turner (both Fetch Clay, Make Man). Making their local debuts are Jabari Brisport (New York) and JaBen Early (Washington DC). The production will run for a limited engagement of 29 performances from February 19 through March 15. Opening night is Tuesday, February 24. Based in Mill Valley, MTC is a 48-year old professional nonprofit theater, whose "New Play Program has become the Bay Area blue-chip showcase for new American plays" (For All Events).

"Danai Gurira is one of our most exciting American playwrights," said Minadakis. "And we are thrilled to be producing her Bay Area debut while her latest world premiere is playing at Yale Rep. The Convert is the first piece of Danai's trilogy about the long and complicated history of Zimbabwe and the people who call that region home. I am incredibly moved by the play's examination of the impacts of Christianity on the African people, and how religion interacted with the colonial business interests that sought to capitalize on Africa's wealth. Danai has created three very complex and amazing female characters, and I am excited to see how our audiences react to their powerful stories."

In the emerging colony of Rhodesia, a young Shona girl named Jekesai escapes a forced marriage arrangement by becoming maid and student to Chilford Ndlovu, an African man who continues the work of Catholic British missionaries. As anti-colonial sentiments rise among her people, Jekesai must make an impossible choice - between her newfound Christian faith and her ancestral loyalties, between European and African ways of life. In this "gutsy, heartfelt [and] richly complex portrait" (Chicago Tribune), "Gurira has met the demands of a big subject by writing a big play" (The Washington Post).

Commissioned by the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, The Convert premiered in January 2012 at the McCarter Theatre Center in New Jersey in a coproduction with Goodman Theatre in Chicago and Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre, where the play also ran in March and April of that year, respectively. Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company produced the play in February 2013 at its Washington DC theater and the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia in October 2013. Most recently, Tennessee's Hattiloo Theatre produced The Convert in October 2014 in partnership with The Memphis Theological Seminary.

Born in Iowa and raised in Zimbabwe, actor, playwright and activist Danai Gurira may be best known for her recurring role of Michonne in the AMC drama series The Walking Dead. She is also "an impressive young playwright" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Her plays - In the Continuum (2006, co-written with Nikkole Salter), Eclipsed (2009), The Convert and Familiar (premiering this month at Yale Repertory Theatre) - have earned her "a reputation for hard-hitting drama" (Variety), the Village Voice's 2006 Obie Award for playwriting and the 2012 Whiting Writers' Award, which is given in recognition of exceptional talent and promise early in a writer's career. Gurira says that she began writing for theater, "out of necessity, because African women deserved a voice and a place on the stage" (The Daily Beast). The Convert is the first of a trilogy that the playwright plans to write about Zimbabwe.

Director Jasson Minadakis continues to receive accolades for the productions he helms. Most recently, The Whale was featured by the San Francisco Chronicle, Marin IJ, North Bay Bohemian and Bay Area Reporter as one of the top theater productions of 2014. Failure: A Love Story has been nominated for 6 2014 San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, including best director and production; and The Whipping Man won the 2013 SFBATCC Awards for best production and ensemble.

Katherine Renee Turner stars as Jekesai (who is later given the Christian name Ester). She appeared last year in MTC's Fetch Clay, Make Man in a 2014 SFBATCC Award-nominated performance hailed as "luminous" by the Marin IJ and "bracing, self-assured [and] refreshing" by the San Francisco Chronicle. Recently named Bay Area Theater's "Most Valuable Player" of 2014 by the San Francisco Chronicle, L. Peter Callender returns to the stage to perform his second Zimbabwean character in a row, having last portrayed President Robert Mugabe in Breakfast with Mugabe at Aurora Theatre Company.

ABOUT
Southern Africa. 1896. An impossible choice.

Against her family's wishes, a young Shona girl escapes a forced marriage arrangement by converting to Christianity and becoming servant and student to an African evangelist. However, as anti-European sentiments rise among her people, she must choose between colonial and ancestral ways of life. Recommended for mature teens and up.

Born in Iowa but raised in Zimbabwe, Danai Gurira is the Obie and Whiting Writers Award-winning playwright of several critically acclaimed plays. She is also an actress best known for her role as Michonne in the hit AMC TV series The Walking Dead. Her plays have earned her "a reputation for hard-hitting drama" (Variety), and The Convert will be your first chance to see her powerful and compelling work live on stage in the Bay Area.

TICKETS
$20-$58, details below (discounts available for Seniors and those Under 30)

For more information, visit: marintheatre.org | 415.388.5208

Photo credit: Kevin Berne