We take the risk when its easier to stay home. You go sing 16 bars of hamilton at the white house when you could have sung a song you already know. Thats the hamilton in me. It took me six years to get the show to broadway. Rose eclipsed and. Hamilton when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose the second lie ger liberian civil war from 19d 99 to 2003 can claim hundreds of thousands of lives, eclipsed now running at the john golden theater focuses on the lives of five lie ber yn women living through the struggle. The New York Times says the play reminded of us important and too easily forgeten among our own countrys racial troubles. Eclipse made broadway history earlier thissier becoming the first production to feature an allfemale cast, director and playwright. Joining me is the star of t play, lupita nyongo. Its plea wright and its director liesl tommy. They are here to talk about not only the history of the play but the history of these great performers coming together in a historymaking way. Congratulations, first of all. Thank you, charlie. Rose whats the connection to the play that was put on at yale in 2009 . It is the same play. Rose it is the same play. Yes. That was one of its first productions. And out of some sort of amazing sin cronicity lupita was walking too the school as a first Year Graduate student. I was an understudy. And at the yale school of drama you get assigned to understudy the shows at the rep. And sos that was the very first show i got to understudy. Rose how different is the production on broadway today from that very first production that was created there in 2009 . It is actually very similar because danai and i had been working on it for a number of years before it got to yale and done rigorous work with the script. And we were feeling very good about where we landed at yale. And the adjustments we made were really on two scenes. Rose really, just two scenes. For the current production, yeah. Rose what were you creating in your own mind . Whats the story. The sort of big picture story was the story about how human being survive under untenable situations. And we are. Rose within them to survive . And what is specific to each individual that makes their path different from someone elses path. So the circumstances are similar. Youre living in war. Youre living under oppression, but every single woman in the play chooses a different path. Because we are all different. And when we are living under these kinds of circumstances, no one is going to make the same decision, no matter where you are from. Rose but it is about survival. Its about what human beings will do to survive. Rose you chose not to act in this play even though you have a highly publi sided acting career. Rose why didnt you put yourself in it . My artistic mandate from the beginning was really quite simple. It was about number one telling African Women stories and putting them on the american stage and in as many stages as would take them. Number two it was giving women of african desent opportunities because i could see there was a dirt in that area and it was frustrating to myself and the amazing talent i saw around me all the time. My first play in the continueium i did coperform and i knew that the next thing, this was the next play i wrote. And i knew that it was very clear to me i wanted to be outside of it i wanted to have the outside eye and take care of a world of itself, if im performing, my brain is working in a whole other way because im focusing on the arc of a character. If im stepping out and being the creator, im allowing myself to simply focus on everything and every one and creating a coheesive world with several characters versus just myself and the cocreator of my last play. So it was very important to me, actually, that this play was where i step into being that other type of playwright, not the playwright who always performs but the playwright without doesnt perform and who hands it over to performers that you have worked with to allow them to let it blossom and bloom. Was it your decision to have only a female cast. Of course it was. Yeah, of course. Rose i thought you might be going to say no, we had a group discussion. No, we didnt. You created it and you just said. Yeah, no. Rose you had the commander there but his presence is not seen. It was very important to me. What propelled me to create the play was the idea that i could not see the stories of women in war on the continent or anywhere, really. I knew tons of stories of men. There was no place i saw that story. I so you tons of war lords we all knee who Charles Taylor is, but i couldnt name the women i now name. I couldnt name those women until i went to liberia an said amy im going to learn your stories so i can tell them to the world. Rose ands story is as timely as today at this moment in wars. Unfortunately, what is happening in syria is devastating. Rose boko haram, and what they are doing. Right, exactly. The boko haram issue, totally, we are coming up on the two Year Anniversary this week of those girls still being in a state of abduction and in a similar state to what you see in that stage. Rose who is the girl. The girl is new to this world of war. Shes just newly been exposed to it. Recently lost her parents and she comes to this compound to learn what it means to be a woman at war. She starts off with a lot of agency and goes on to immediately lose it and her journey is one of trying to get back her agency and trying to find herself again. Rose and she is different from the other women in the play. Yes, shes different because she has come from a city. She is some what educated as well. And she, until recently knew exactly where her parents were. You know. Rose yet they want to protect her. They do. They do want to protect her. While one in particular, number one, the mat ree arc of this compound matriach of this compound wants to protect her from what she knows the war can do to a woman and to her body. But unfortunately, very soon when the play starts shes unable to do this. Rose this is what you told the New York Times. What attracted me to both projects was the agency of those characters, at first glass they look like victims but the writing offers complexity, they are deep, they have likes, strong dislikes, needs, fears and as an actor im always looking for that. This is what you two have done. This is what you have brought. You have given humanity to people that we didnt know. You have given a sense that they are real and human and while they are suffering. Well, yeah, the goal is, having grown up on the couldnt konlt nent as we all did, coming to the United States for me, it was very, very frustrating. All three of us. It was a frustrating thing to see how africans are often depicted it is a very statistical depiction. Having grown up there, we have seen very, very complex, interesting, driven fascinating human beings. Rose like everybody else. Like everybody else. But they dont get that portrayal in the west. So thats always been the goal as each of us create in our different ways to, you know, for me as a writer, its always the goal to create characters that you might see this girl as a victim because thats what you hear on the news. But im actually going to give you two hours to spend with her in her mind, thoughts and experiences, in her fears and in her joys so that you cant walk away and call her the other ever again. You have to realize that there is a very innate connection. An she has strength and potential. The title of being eclipsed means you are blocking light. But the light is still there its just being blocked. And the hope is that its temporary. The blockage leaves and you see the light once again. Rose what is the exal eng for the director . There isnt a challenge for the director. Its just joy. Rose the challenge is for me it is, it was the relentless pursuit of specificity. Rose specificity. So never stopping the research. So that the actors when they step on to that stage, they are bringing a broken heart for this country, for this history, for the political history. They are inhabiting the lives of these women and this particular war in this particular place, not a general african story but the story of liberia in this window of time. And also creating a healthy environment for the women, for these actresses to go as far as i we wanted them to go emotionally. And be able to walk away. Rose how did you get them there. Torture. By, you know, by basically just constantly pushing. Rose rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal. Were you tortured . I wouldnt call it that. But i would just say, liesl creates an environment of pursuing your best at all times. The bar is high. And so you have to show up. You show up in the rehearsal and because the bar is so high, you are challenged to meet that bar. And that was what was so rivetting about being in that rehearsal room. There was never a day when we were just like pacing it out. Every moment of rehearsal was a chance to discover something new, to ask questions and to explore. And so it was very exciting. And also exhausting rehearsal process. The analysis of what she does is really the thing that is so crucial for this play. Is that you have to find a space where you are vulnerable but you also have to be pushed to the edge and become very, and allow this environment to become quite dangerous and alive. Liesl creates an environment where she doesnt let people off the hook. Where she does challenge them. But she also allowed them to feel extremely safe. Rose is the staging and production of it, those elements changed much since 2009 . Yeah, it has. Because ive grown as a director. And my visualize has deened and become i think more sophisticated. And so it has changed. I think that the Design Elements are its just everything is sharper. Rose in and more precise. Yes, always precise. Rose in is what you said. And you said that i think both the walking dead and eclipsed ironically ask the same question. Who would you be if the world got this dire. Who would you be. Right, right. Because i mean what i really want people to walk away from also when they leave the theater is the concept of not being able to judge. A lot of the time when you funk in the world as an african in the west you deal with people coming up to you and throwing horrible thoughts about what they are hearing in africa, whats happening. People are doing this. People do that am and youre like the context is not actually something theyre really taking too account. Theyre just taking like threads of a headline or something sensationalized. So the idea of putting people in the context. If you were in this war, you would become someone different from who you are today. Theres no way youre going to be who you are when things are stable and everything works right and you can dial 911. Youre going to become someone different when those things go away. Rose what is different. What do you become . Thats the question. Thats why there are five different women on the stage who represent five very different types of responses. They all are coping differently. Theyre navigating differently. Theyre pursuing their power differently. So i always argue that. Theyre preserving themselves. Rose what is their power. Their power is their able to stay alive. Rose to survive. Invasion. Right. Theyre choosing their life. Theyre choosing to live. Theyre choosing to survive. That is another thing i find frustrating when i see how africans are depicted often, sometimes even in media but also sometimes in narrative where you dont see them make choices. You dont see them actually have any sort of inner drive or strength or perspective or idiosyncracy. You just see them kind of be one or two dimensional victims. So of course were working against that by allowing these characters to have personality and to respond differently to the exact same circumstances. Rose do you believe that you are changing and other things are changing whether its hamilton or other plays that are on broadway, changing the perception of africans an africanamericans . And their role in history . Well, i cant say yes, im doing that. But i can say i hope so. I hope im contributing to tha. Rose one of your actors said they call it chocolate bloc. Nice. Yeah, why not. But yeah, i mean why not. It is time. Rose why did you say that. Because pass kal raymond, if you see the show, all of there is so much humor, so much life. Rose it to be her. She is the source of a lot of shenanigans. Rose yeah. I would say it is an exciting moment. You see, you look at lupita what she has accomplished in such a short amount of time and how her voice carries. It is a beautiful thing it is unprecedented and slg that i believe will keep happening. And that is really exciting. Rose you have been we seiged with all kinds of offers, i assume. You are everywhere, there is a huge amount of attention to you in fashion, in commercials, and i assume in all the films that you are offered. What did this mean to you . Why this role . Well. Rose even though you had a connection to it way back at yale in 2009. Its a role that just never left me. I saw liesl and danai bring this show to life at yale. And i was so pleasantly surprised that first of all i would have the opportunity to see such a production happen at yale. One of the things that i had been washed about coming to drama school in the United States and specifically yale is how your centric my program would be. And the first thing that gets offered to me is a play set in africa. You know. And so for me that danai exists at the same time as i do, and shes telling these stories that are complex, that are compelling, that open up this liberian country to the world, i didnt know anything about liberia myself. So how much i learned from the Emotional Experience of seeing her play. I just thought it was a blessing. And i wanted to share it with a larger world. And i remember promising myself that i would show, some day do it. And so when 12 years a slave happened and my life went into like, accelerated, i sat with myself and thought what do i want to do next. What do i want to do next. And eclipsed just kept coming back. Something about telling a story on stage that is so powerful that i just needed to get back there, to remind myself what is this thing that i do. And how is it that i have gotten to this place. And what can i do to get this story out there. And so yeah, thats how. Rose what is different between the public and broadway . I actually think that because the public was a smaller space. And the golden is a much bigger house. In a way, we opened up the story, its funnier. I think that we worked with the actresses to just make it more accessible in some ways to the not downtown audience. But i also think in terms of dt see design, you have a chance to kind of experience the story in a more epic way because we have more physical space. Rose and more epic way. Yeah. So its not just about these four men in a compound. Its also you get a sense of breathed. So its also about war. I will say for my perspective that the show feels more dangerous. Because there is more room for you to fill as an actor. And so theres just, and because theres more people in the room, you have to work that a much harder to get them all on the same page with you. So it felt like for me, my performance had to like break open. It was no longer the intimacy of hearing the little sigh on the side from the audience. Now i have to work to reach them. And get them to reach me. Rose so what happens on june 20th . Doesnt it close on june 19th. The actors go on a long vacation, yes. Cuz they do work extraordinarily hard. Will you do a movie right after that. No, please. Vacation. I think i will need, i will require some time off. Rose a vacation. Yes. They are. Rose and you . Well, i i wouldnt know. I will probably be in zombieland. I will probably be in atlanta. But you know. Rose as good as that is and as popular as that is, my sefns you is you would not be satisfied with that as your primary total creative endeavor. Well, i mean, at the end of the day i am a story teller. And i love telling story in whatever way i can. And the walking dead is something that i didnt take randomly. I looked at the story. I looked at the character. I looked at the world. I watched what they had already done on the screen and i was deeply interested and deeply desirous of becoming a part of it. Id a few times is that thereve was this interesting parallel between that character and one of the characters that i had created in this play. Who had not lupitas character but another character, who is really a woman soldier, who makes herself her own weapon to combat this war zone, this hostile environment. And thats who this character in the walking dead was. So when i came across her, this is after i had written it, i said what is this. This looks like mama. And so the connection i feel in the sense where i said its the same premise, i do feel its a very rich story that i get to tell every week on television. So it is something deeply, deeply, deeply dear to me, as is as are the plays i write which of course are all my children. Rose and where are you going . Well, i am working on a project for disney right now in california. And. Rose a movie . No, its an adaptation of the movie frozen. Rose oh, yes, i heard about that. And. Rose no about frozen but that disney was doing this and you were doing it. Yes, so thats the next big project, current project. Rose i vn seen he clipszed yet but i look forward to coming before june. You must. You must see lupita do what she does because its deeply, deeply, deeply special. Rose congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Rose eclipsed, june 19th at the goldwin theater, until june 19th go see it back in a moment. Stay with us. You know to sit here on this stage, Richard Rogers theater. What does it mean to you . They are hallowed places, these broadway house, guys dolls premiered here, 1776 premiered here when it was called the 46th street theater. And i am very aware of the ghosts. Im very aware of the history that we, like this earth, we only get to borrow it for a little while. And you know, my broadway debut was on this stage with in the heights. So to it was amazing to do the show for the first time here. And say oh wait, i know this house. Ive been here before. But to be here with, you know, the latest story ive spebt my life working on, was really both disorienting and intimate. You know, the relationship with the crowd as you can see, its a steep rake. Its the steepest rake on broadway. I can look people in the eye here, 14 rows back and paradoxically even though the theater at the public was smaller, this feels more intimate to me. Rose wow. And you had a chance to choose. Yeah. Rose where you would go. This was our dream theater and it luckily opened up sort of right before we came