"Due to popular demand," a release states, the work will add shows Oct. 27-29. Robert O'Hara directs the new work which began Sept. 11 and opened Oct. 2 for a run through Oct. 30.
"In The Continuum dramatizes the devastating problem of HIV/AIDS among African and African-American women that has reached an all time high both in the US and Africa," according to show materials. The show's co-creators portray numerous characters in two parallel stories — a married Zimbabwean woman and a 19-year-old girl from South Central Los Angeles — in this tale told from a woman's perspective.
Salter, born and raised in Los Angeles, pens and performs the new work with Gurira, who was born in the U.S. and raised in Zimbabwe. Director O'Hara wrote and directed the world premiere of Insurrection: Holding History at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater (the 1996 Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play Debut). His credits also include American Ma(u)l (The Culture Project), an adaptation of Beowulf into a funk/rock musical for Seattle Repertory Theater and the new upcoming works Raw Pearl, a musical based on the life of Pearl Bailey, and Antebellum, a new play which Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose has appeared in development readings at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's 2005 Playwrights Conference and the upcoming Hartford Stage's "Brand:NEW Fall Festival of New Works."
Primary Stages currently presents the New York premiere of Terrence McNally's Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams starring Marian Seldes. The season will then continue with the east coast premiere of Charles Grodin's The Right Kind of People, directed by Chris Smith (Jan. 24-March 5, 2006) followed by Amy Irving starring in Marta Góes' solo play A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop (March 21-April 30, 2006).
Tickets to In The Continuum and Primary Stages' shows at the 59E59 Theaters, at 59 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Ave.), can be purchased by calling (212) 279-4200 or at the box office. For more information, visit www.primarystages.com.
