Navigating Twelfth Night

In order to help audience members grapple with the relationships in Twelfth Night, Graphic Designer Danny Garber and Web Designer Dimple Parmer have collaborated to create this new online feature: “Navigating Twelfth Night,” which uses costume designer Miranda Hoffman’s designs and sketches to map out the relationships in Twelfth Night.

Click the image above to visit our Audience Resource Guide and enjoy this new interactive feature. If you find this resource helpful, throw us a comment by clicking on “comments” below!

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Every spring, the DC artistic community celebrates theatrical excellence with the Helen Hayes Awards—it’s like the Tony Awards for Washington, DC-area theatre. This spring marks the 25th anniversary of the awards, and we’re ecstatic to see that this year’s nominations includes The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Twelfth Night, a co-production with McCarter. The McCarter production begins previews on March 10; click here for tickets.

Nominations for Twelfth Night include:
Outstanding Resident Play
Outstanding Direction, Resident Play-Rebecca Bayla Taichman
Outstanding Costume Design, Resident Production-Miranda Hoffman
Outstanding Supporting Actress, Resident Play-Nancy Robinette
Outstanding Supporting Actor, Resident Play-Floyd King
Outstanding Supporting Actor, Resident Play-Tom Story
Outstanding Ensemble, Resident Play

Congratulations also to Brian Tyree Henry for his nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor, Non-Resident Production, for Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size at Studio Theatre. Henry will be performing in McCarter’s upcoming production of McCraney’s The Brother/Sister Plays.

Click here for a full list of nominees.

Winners of the Helen Hayes Awards will be announced in a ceremony on April 13. Congratulations to our colleagues at The Shakespeare Theatre Company and to all of the nominees!

Posted by Patrick McKelvey, Literary Intern at McCarter Theatre.

Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed takes place in 2003, during the final year of Liberia’s Second Civil War.  Below, we have compiled a digest of articles chronicling Liberia throughout that year, including articles that provide general context, as well as items devoted specifically to the effects of war on women and children.   (For a more distilled play-by-play of Liberia in 2003, please see this blog post.)

Liberia: International Contact Group Urges Government and Rebels to Hold Ceasefire Talks
UN New York, Mar 1, 2003

Representatives of countries concerned about the situation in Liberia have issued a statement urging ceasefire talks between the country’s Government and the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). More...

The Golden Tulip Declaration of Liberian Women Attending the Peace Talks in Accra
Accra, Ghana, 15 March 2003

Preamble
We, the representatives of the various Liberian Women’s Organizations at the Accra Peace Talks on Liberia held a one-day Strategic Planning Meeting under the Chairmanship of Her Excellency Madame Ruth Sando Perry on Friday 15th Day of August A.D. 2003 at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra to analyse lessons learnt at the Accra Peace Talks from 4 June 2003 to present and to strategize on the inclusion of women within all existing and proposed institutions including all components of the current and in-coming Liberian Government (Executive, Legislative and Judiciary) and within all structures to lead the post conflict peace building process.  More…

Charles Taylor-Preacher, Warlord, and President
BBC International, June 04, 2003
By Mark Doyle, BBC World Affairs Correspondent

Charles Taylor is a frustrated showman.

There is nothing this naturally confident man would like more than to strut the African stage playing the flamboyant statesman.  More…

UN-Backed Sierra Leone Court Indicts Liberian President Charles Taylor
UN New York, June 4, 2003

A United Nations-backed court in Sierra Leone announced today that it has indicted Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes and issued an international warrant for his arrest.  More…

LIBERIA: Child Soldiers are Back on the Frontline
IRINnews Africa, June 9, 2003
© UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003

ABIDJAN, - As Liberian President Charles Taylor fights for his very survival, child soldiers, many of them orphans of the conflict, are back at the forefront of the fighting. Every day they can be seen riding around the streets of the capital Monrovia in pick-up trucks proudly toting their automatic rifles.  More…

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Before rehearsals began, McCarter Literary manager Carrie Hughes spoke with playwright Danai Gurira about her inspiration for Eclipsed.

What inspired you to write Eclipsed?

I’ve always had a passion for telling African women’s stories.  I feel like it’s a very underexplored area.  Being an African woman, having grown up and been raised around African women, but having lived half my life in the west, I’ve always been curious as to why our stories aren’t more told.  So I’ve taken it on myself to do whatever I can do to contribute to a cannon of work that is kind of thin.  That’s the reason I tend to generally veer toward African women’s stories.

It was really an image that struck me concerning Liberian women and war.  I was rehearsing another play in my final year of grad school at NYU and my director showed me a NY Times article that had a picture of the Liberian woman rebel fighter, Black Diamond. She’s quite well known at this point and her corps of women was quite feared during the Liberian war.  I became very intrigued and marveled at these women and how rarely we hear and see the stories of women and war and their role therein, specifically African women.  We always hear about African war, but we never really hear about women and how they navigate and survive a war terrain. So that spurred my interest and it went from there.

You were talking about the photo that inspired you.  Can you talk about that a little bit, what it looked like?

It was basically a bunch of women, Black Diamond and her army of women, who were member of the women’s fighting core of LURD, which was a faction of the rebel fighters. They were all standing there beautifully, very funkily clad, in jeans and slinky tops and berets and their hair was all well done, and they all had AK-47s slung over their shoulders and very steely glares as they looked in to the camera. I honestly had never seen such an image of African women in my life, so it was really the image that got me completely enthralled.

Now your first play, In the Continuum, also dealt with African women, but you performed in it as well as writing it.  With Eclipsed you’re just the playwright-it’s the first play you’ve written where you’re just the playwright.  How do you think your background as an actress and as someone who has written for yourself affects you as you sit down to write a play where you’re just going to be a playwright?

I think it gives me a very specific type of empathy that affects what I’m putting in people’s mouths. I want to give them things to play with that are interesting, that have depth, things that have action, that give life to a character.  I don’t want to put too much burden on an actor, but I want them to have something fun to play, something very challenging.  As an actor, I want to be challenged and have some rich strong material to deal with.  I realize I’ve been working that way with Eclipsed, trying to create work that gives actors a lot to do, especially actors who I feel are rarely given a lot do.

And by that you mean African-American women, especially young African-American women?

Women of African diaspora.  I love to employ women of the diaspora.

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Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed takes place in 2003, during the final year of Liberia’s Second Civil War.  Below, we have created timelines of contemporary Liberian history and provided summaries of some of the war’s major players, including Charles Taylor, LURD, and the Liberian Women’s Initiative.  (For a more in-depth information, stay tuned for an upcoming entry which features a digest of Liberian current events throughout 2003.)

A Condensed Early History of Liberia

In 1816, prominent Americans found The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America (also known as the American Colonization Society) to facilitate the return of “Africans in America” to Africa.  The first ACS ship arrives on the coast of what will become Liberia and settlers stake their claim in 1821, meeting resistance from the indigenous people.  A series of wars between settlers (and their descendents) and the native tribes (including the Dei, Bassa, Kru, Vai, and Grebo) rage off and on for the next hundred years.  This tension-and the continued economic and political power of settlers’ descendents (called Americo-Liberians) at the expense of the indigenous people-remains a dominant current throughout Liberian history.

Timeline of Contemporary Liberian History

1979—Liberian President William Tolbert refuses citizens the right to non-violently protest his increase on the cost of rice; a violent “Rice Riot” begins, resulting in over forty deaths.

1980—Non-commissioned officers in Liberia’s armed forces stage a coup, assassinating Tolbert and creating a military government, People’s Redemption Council (PRC), with Master-Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, a member of the Krahn tribe, as head of state.

1980-9—The Doe Era, marked by instability and ethnic conflict.  Foreign anxiety regarding violent overthrow instigates a downward economic spiral; despite this, government wages increase, amplifying Liberia’s national debt.

1989—Charles Taylor, a former government official under Doe, and his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) leads insurgency against Doe and attack government posts in Nimba County.  Beginning of Great War/First Civil War.

1990—Following a dispute with Taylor, Prince Johnson and others separate from the NPFL and form Independent NPFL (INPFL).   INPFL captures and kills Doe; four warlords, including Taylor, claim the presidency.

1992—NPFL initiates “Operation Octopus” and attacks ECOMOG, a cease-fire monitoring group organized by ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States.  Many rebel factions emerge.

1993—Cotonou Peace Accord provides for Liberian Transitional Government that includes faction representatives and civilians, and organizes the processes of disarmament and democratic elections.  Fighting continues in the countryside.

1994—Founding of Liberian Women’s Initiative, one of many women’s organizations that advocates peace.

1996—War arrives in Monrovia; cease-fire begins in September; end of First Civil War; Ruth Perry leads transitional government.

1997—Election: Taylor wins the presidency (70%); his National Patriotic Party (NPP) wins 21 of 26 Senate Seats and 49 of 64 House seats.

1999—Liberian government observes large military movement of rebel Liberian soldiers in Sierra Leone; the rebels eventually seize most of Lofa County.  The group is eventually discovered to be LURD, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, a recently emerged faction.

2000—US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering and other international delegates meet in Monrovia and declare that if civil war does not cease, Liberia will be recognized as an international pariah.

2002—Taylor declares State of Emergency; many flee Monrovia as LURD troops encroach.

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