Nearly 28-years after Obie, Drama Desk and MacArthur Award winner, Anna Deavere Smith premiered Fires in the Mirror at George Wolfe’s Festival of New Voices, the groundbreaking play will resurrect at off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre this fall.

The award-winning, one-actor documentary production consists of a series of monologues which Smith created from interviews conducted after the historic Crown Heights riots. Tensions between Crown Heights’ black and Hasidim communities broke out into violence in the summer of 1991 after a Jewish man lost control while driving in Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s motorcade and fatally struck 7-year-old Gavin Cato; a black boy. Three days of civil unrest ensued, leading to the fatal stabbing of 29-year-old Yankel Rosenbaum; a Jewish student who had visited the neighborhood. Fires in the Mirror was Smith’s intimate response to the tragedies, having spoken to over 100 members of local community.

“As the play demonstrates, there were long-simmering prejudices amongst people of different races living side by side before the events of August 1991,” said Fires in the Mirror director, Saheem Ali. “As a city, our different identities — racial, cultural, religious — are a collective strength, but they are also a tinderbox of misconception and misunderstanding.”

In the original production, Smith performed the show solely; voicing over twenty different characters verbatim. In August, Signature Theatre announced Michael Benjamin Washington (The Boys in the Band) would now fill the role.

“This is the first time another actor will embody the multitude of characters that define her [Anna Deavere Smith] oeuvre,” said Ali. “I’m excited for audiences to experience this seminal work, its groundbreaking form, through the lens of the very talented actor Michael Benjamin Washington.”

Washington recently completed filming the Ryan Murphy-produced Netflix adaptation of The Boys in the Band after reprising his 2018 Broadway performance as Bernard. He also played in La Cage Aux Folles and Mamma Mia! on Broadway, with TV credits including Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Glee.
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Fires in the Mirror’s full creative team include Arnulfo Maldonado (Scenic Design), Dede M. Ayite (Costume Design), Alan C. Edwards (Lighting Design), Mikaal Sulaiman (Sound Design), Hannah Wasileski (Projection Design), and Dawn-Elin Fraser (Dialect Coach).

Over the past several decades Crown Heights’ Hasidic Jews and Black residents have worked hard to coexist, but there are still moments of tension. Now with and added layer. The neighborhood is now at the height of gentrification and both parties are fighting displacement. Fires in the Mirror couldn’t come at a more apropos time. The conversation needs to be revisited.

The production runs October 22 and has been extended through December 1, 2019, with a November 11 opening night in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues). On Thursday, November 14, Signature will host a free post-show talkback with Ayanna Prescod, founder of OurBKSocial, and Rabbi Mordecai Lightstone, founder of Tech Tribe. Both Prescod and Lightstone are Crown Heights natives and friends, and lived in the community during the time of the riots. The play launches Anna Deavere Smith’s Residency 1 at Signature.

Every ticket to Fires in the Mirror through November 24 is $35. Signature has guaranteed affordable tickets to every production through 2031 thanks to Signature Ticket Initiative: A Generation of Access, a groundbreaking initiative launched in 2005. Theater should be accessible to everyone.

To purchase tickets for Fires in the Mirror, and all Signature productions call Ticket Services at 212-244-7529 (Tues. – Sun., 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.) or visit www.SignatureTheatre.org.