The Oscar winning actress (12 Years A Slave) will play "The Girl" in the NYC premiere of Danai Gurira's drama, which "looks at the terrible conflicts in post-colonial Africa with an eye that is both incisive and deeply compassionate," according to a statement from Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis. "A feminist reading of the Liberian Civil War, a war that was ended by women, Eclipsed is both heart-breaking and profoundly life-affirming. We are delighted to welcome the extraordinary Lupita Nyong'o to The Public in this vitally important play."

Nyong'o will next be seen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as the motion capture character "Maz Kanata." She just wrapped production in Uganda on Mira Nair's The Queen of Katwe opposite David Oyelowo and lends her voice to Jon Favreau's upcoming Jungle Book as "Raksha," set for release next April.

Zimbabwean-American playwright and actress Gurira is co-author of The Convert and In the Continuum and plays Michonne on AMC's The Walking Dead). She's at work on a pilot for HBO.

Eclipsed will be staged by Liesl Tommy (Kid Victory, Appropriate and the Public's The Good Negro), associate director of Berkeley Rep and a Sundance artist trustee. She staged the drama's 2009 world premiere at Washington's Woolly Mammoth Theater, and it was subsequently presented at the Yale Reportory Theater. Eclipsed will begin previews at the Public on September 29 and run through November 8, with an official press opening on October 14.