Washington Post Profiles Playwrights Who Highlight Impact of HIV/AIDS on Women
The Washington Post on Friday profiled two playwrights who highlight the impact of HIV/AIDS on women in the U.S. and abroad. Although "plays dealing with AIDS are practically a subgenre of American theater ... women have been only a small part of the story," according to the Post. To "remedy the situation," playwrights Nikkole Salter of the U.S. and Danai Gurira, a native of Zimbabwe, collaborated while the two were students at New York University and wrote monologues that address women and HIV/AIDS, the Post reports. The culmination of their collaboration is a 90-minute play, titled "In the Continuum," in which the two playwrights perform all the roles. The play centers around two pregnant women -- one from the U.S. and one from Zimbabwe -- who learn they are HIV-positive and have to face obstacles, including a lack of resources and dealing with the reaction from their families. The play has run in New York City; Cape Town, South Africa; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Harare, Zimbabwe, and it currently is playing in Washington, D.C. Gurira said the play was written to engage Western audiences, who might be unaware "that they have anything to do" with HIV/AIDS. She added that "AIDS touches everybody. The health of each individual on the planet either directly or indirectly affects everyone. It affects our potential as a human race" (Barry, Washington Post, 8/25).
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