Los Angeles Times Profiles Authors of Play Portraying Lives of HIV-Positive Pregnant Women

The Los Angeles Times on Sunday profiled the authors of the play "In the Continuum," which focuses on two pregnant women who contracted HIV from their partners and whose lives run parallel, despite the fact that they live on different continents. Playwrights Nikkole Salter and Danai Gurira were developing two separate pieces on HIV-positive women for the graduate acting program at New York University last year when a professor suggested they combine their stories. In the production, Salter portrays Nia, a young black resident of Los Angeles who contracts HIV from a "hotshot basketball player," and Gurira portrays Abigail, a mother and wife living in Zimbabwe whose career as a TV newsreader is threatened after she contracts HIV from her husband, the Times reports. Salter and Gurira said the goal of "In the Continuum" is to educate audiences about HIV/AIDS while also entertaining them. "I thought if I could dramatize (issues of HIV transmission) in a way that didn't feel preachy, that was inviting," Salter said, adding "Then that could affect the choices people might make regarding sex" (Pacheco, Los Angeles Times, 12/11).