According to The Village Voice, "Sword's one-woman performance makes riveting theater." The British Theatre Guide calls the intense 75-minute play "a truly compelling story and a reminder of the power and purpose of theatre." An inspiring account of courage, luck, perseverance, and faith, Miracle in Rwanda asks audiences to imagine the unimaginable, and then follow one person's remarkable journey from incomprehension and hatred to compassion and forgiveness. Each performance of Miracle in Rwanda will be followed by a post-show discussion examining the issues raised by the play, the first in Stanford Drama's Stages of Reconciliation project, using performance to explore intractable human problems. Leslie Lewis Sword in Miracle in Rwanda
Photo: Derek Van Oss | | To provide some historical background for Miracle in Rwanda, we also will screen Beyond the Gates (UK title Shooting Dogs) on Monday, October 29 at 7:00 pm in Pigott Theater. The film screening is free and open to the public; tickets to Miracle in Rwanda are available online using the button above. |
About Immaculée IlibagizaImmaculée Ilibagiza's family was brutally murdered during the three-month slaughter of Tutsis and Hutu moderates that broke out in Rwanda in April 1994. Miraculously, she managed to survive by hiding in a tiny bathroom with seven other Tutsi women in a local Hutu pastor's home for ninety-one days.
Immaculée's terror escalated daily as bands of machete-wielding killers searched the house trying to find her. Trapped in near silence for over three months, Immaculée found her way beyond fear and rage to a deeper connection with her Catholic faith. After her escape and the cessation of the killing, she met and forgave those who butchered her family and loved ones, and wreaked such havoc on her homeland. Ilibagiza's story was presented on "Sixty Minutes" in 2006, bringing national attention to her story and to its dramatization in Miracle in Rwanda. This year her autobiography Left To Tell debuted at #8 on the New York Times Bestseller List. She is a much sought-after speaker, often appearing with Wayne Dyer in his PBS specials. She currently lives in New York City with her family.
About Leslie Lewis Sword, Performer and PlaywrightA graduate of Harvard University, Leslie Lewis Sword received her MFA in acting from UCLA's Department of Theater. She made her New York debut as Dorothy Dandridge in a solo show at the National Black Theater of Harlem, under the creative direction of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. In 2006, she traveled to Rwanda with Immaculée Ilibagiza, and then developed her powerful one-person show based on Immaculée's life. Miracle in Rwanda was originally produced by TheatreZone in Naples, Florida, with Mark Danni as Artistic Director. This year Sword and her husband adopted two children from Rwanda, dividing their time between their home in Naples, Florida and New York City. A short video clip from the performance and more information about Sword is available at http://www.miracleinrwanda.com.
Post-Show Speaker EventsEach evening's performance will be followed by a discussion led by experts who have grappled with the issues raised in the play:  November 1: Dr. Fred Luskin, Director of Learning to Forgive, will speak about the politics of reconciliation, comparing the situation in Rwanda with Northern Ireland. He is author of the book, Forgive for Good and currently works as a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. Dr. Luskin presents lectures, workshops, seminars and trainings throughout the United States on the importance and benefits of forgiveness.
|  November 2: Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa, a leader in the Rwandese Patriotic Front from 1990-96, worked to stop the genocide and helped to establish a new government for Rwanda. He became the first Ambassador to the US in post-genocide Rwanda, serving during the Clinton administration from 1996-1999. He then became Chief of Staff to the Office of the President of Rwanda from 2000-2004. Currently Dr. Rudasingwa is Vice-President and Global Affairs and Global Projects Specialist for Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation (based in San Francisco), where he works to develop partnerships with organizations engaged in large-scale HIV/AIDS treatment delivery.
|  November 3: Byron Bland, Associate Director of Stanford's Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, will speak about the relationship between personal and community-based reconciliation. Before coming to Stanford University in 1976, Bland was the pastor of a multiracial, urban church in San Francisco. While at Stanford, he was appointed Associate Fellow at the Program for Interdisciplinary Studies. He is a founding member of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion and has served as a lecturer in the Stanford Law School, the School of Education, and the International Relations program.
|  November 4: Professor Robert Gregg, former Dean of Religious Life, will speak about the role of faith in times of crisis, and the difficult task of forgiveness. Dr. Gregg is the Teresa Hihn Moore Professor in Religious Studies (Emeritus), and serves as Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. Professor Gregg's current research deals with several "sacred stories" which appear both in the Bible and the Qur'an, examining interpretations of these narratives by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writers and graphic artists in each of the religions' early centuries. |
Free Film Screening On Monday, October 29 at 7:00 pm in Pigott Theater, the Stages of Reconciliation project will screen Beyond the Gates (UK title Shooting Dogs) a recent film by Michael Caton-Jones (director of City by the Sea, The Jackal, and This Boy's Life), starring John Hurt and Hugh Dancy. Professor David Anthony of University of California, Santa Cruz will introduce the film and lead the discussion afterwards. Based on a true story, the film tells of a Catholic priest and a young English teacher who find themselves caught up in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and must choose between fleeing the country or staying with the thousands of Tutsis awaiting the slaughter. "800,000 killed in 100 days. Would you risk your life to make a difference?" The film won Grand Prize for Dramatic Feature at the 2006 Heartland Film Festival. It was nominated for the Carl Foreman Award for producer David Belton at the 2006 BAFTA Awards, and for Best Achievement in Production and Best Director at the 2006 British Independent Film Awards.
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Leslie Lewis Sword in Miracle in Rwanda
