Black Panther star's play to be staged at Young Vic

A play by Danai Gurira, star of Black Panther and The Walking Dead, is to be staged in London later this year.

The Convert, about a girl who converts to Catholicism in 1890s Rhodesia, will open at the Young Vic in December.

Kwame Kwei-Armah, the theatre's new artistic director, called the play, first staged in 2012, a "modern classic... ripe for interpretation."

Gurira played Wakandan general Okoye in Black Panther, Marvel's most successful comic book blockbuster to date.

The Convert was first seen in the UK in a 2017 production at London's Gate Theatre, with the Telegraph describing it as "rich and absorbing".

Gurira's other plays include 2009's Eclipsed, which later played in New York with a cast headed by Black Panther's Lupita Nyong'o.

Kwei-Armah's debut season at the Young Vic also includes a musical reworking of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night that will involve members of the local community.

The playwright and former Casualty actor succeeds David Lan, who spent 18 years as the south London venue's artistic director.

Gurira, 40, was born in the US but grew up in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

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