Tony Award winning actress Cynthia Erivo has been cast as the title character in Macro/New Balloon’s film “Harriet,” an upcoming biopic on famed abolitionist and Underground Railroad warrior Harriet Tubman.

Seith Mann is attached to direct from a script by Gregory Allen Howard, according to Deadline.com.

Debra Martin Chase is producing along with Howard, Founder/CEO of Macro Charles D. King, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, and Kim Roth. Exec producers are New Balloon’s Elizabeth Koch, Kristina Kendall, Nnamdi Asomugha and Bill Benenson as well as Poppy Hanks.

Erivo earned a Tony Award for her lead role in Broadway’s The Color Purple. She’s also up for the Best Musical Theater Album Grammy this weekend and is set to perform the Memoriam tribute with John Legend, as previously reported.On the big screen, Erivo is currently filming the Steve McQueen-directed thriller “Widows,” opposite Viola Davis and “Moonlight’s” André Holland.

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