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It later premiered Off-Broadway in New York at Playwrights Horizons. In January 2015, Familiar, a play written by Gurira and directed by Rebecca Taichman, opened at Yale Repertory Theatre.

Later that year, Gurira received the Whiting Award for an emerging playwright. Gurira's 2012 play The Convert was premiered as a co-production between the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey. In 2009, Gurira made her acting debut on Broadway in August Wilson's play Joe Turner's Come and Gone playing Martha Pentecost. Sponsored by the United States Embassy in Zimbabwe, the play was performed at Harare's Theatre and featured the story of two women who were navigating the world after contracting HIV. In December 2011, In the Continuum commemorated World AIDS Day 2011. Gurira co-wrote and co-starred in In the Continuum, first at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and later Off-Broadway, which won her an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Helen Hayes Award for Best Lead Actress. As a playwright, she has been commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Playwrights Horizons, and the Royal Court.

Gurira said that she began writing plays in an effort to better utilize her strengths as an actress, and to tell stories that convey ideas about strong women with whom she identifies. Gurira at the 2015 The Walking Dead Panel at San Diego Comic Con. In May 2023 Gurira played Richard III in a Shakespeare in the Park production. “She approached her studies, her classes, with a lot of focus, and you can see the same things in her performance in ‘Black Panther.’ ” Theater “She was a very intelligent, strong and independent young lady,” said Shields. Gurira performed in a production of the Ntozake Shange play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, directed and choreographed by Dale Ricardo Shields. One of her earliest notable performances occurred in 2001, as a senior at Macalester College. Gurira taught playwriting and acting in Liberia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Gurira also earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Afterward, she returned to the United States to study at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. She attended high school at Dominican Convent High School. Gurira lived in Grinnell until December 1983, when at age five she and her family moved back to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, after Robert Mugabe rose to power in 1979. She is the youngest of four siblings Shingai and Choni are her sisters and Tare, her brother, is a chiropractor. Her parents moved from Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, to the United States in 1964. Gurira was born on Februin Grinnell, Iowa, to Josephine Gurira, a college librarian, and Roger Gurira, a tenured professor in the Department of Chemistry at Grinnell College (both parents later joined the staff of University of Wisconsin–Platteville). Gurira is also the playwright of the Broadway play Eclipsed, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play.

#Michonne authentic katana series

She is best known for her starring roles as Michonne on the AMC horror drama series The Walking Dead (2012–2020, 2022) and as Okoye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films, including Black Panther (2018) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). Danai Jekesai Gurira ( / d ə ˈ n aɪ ɡ ʊ ˈ r ɪər ə/ born February 14, 1978) is a Zimbabwean–American actress and playwright.