Stage to PageGo Inside Opening Night for Fires in the Mirror Off-BroadwaySignature Theatre revives Anna Deavere Smith's documentary play, written in response to the 1991 Crown Heights riots.
By
Nathan Skethway
November 12, 2019
Paige Evans, Saheem Ali, Michael Benjamin Washington, Anna Deavere Smith, and Harold Wolpert
Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre celebrated the opening of its revival of Fires in the Mirror, Anna Deavere Smith's documentary play written in response to the 1991 Crown Heights riots, November 11.
Originally starring playwright-actor Smith, who first performed the play in 1992, the Signature production is performed by Michael Benjamin Washington (The Boys in the Band) and directed by Saheem Ali.
Following the deaths of a Black American boy and a young Orthodox Jewish scholar in the summer of 1991, underlying racial tensions erupted into civil outbreak in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood. Smith's Fires in the Mirror is the result of interviews with over 50 members of the Jewish and Black communities.
The creative team for the Signature production, which began October 26, is made up of scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado, costume designer Dede M. Ayite, lighting designer Alan C. Edwards, sound designer Mikaal Sulaiman, projection designer Hannah Wasileski, and dialect coach Dawn-Elin Fraser. The production stage manager is Alfredo Macias, and casting is by Caparelliotis Casting.
Created and performed by Sydney-based comedian and visual artist Sam Kissajukian, the show comes to New York directly from a sold-out engagement at Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Surrounded by period-accurate, 19th-century holiday decorations lit via candlelight, the 70-minute production is based on Dickens' own script of the classic.
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