Casting Announced for Signature's FIRES IN THE MIRROR

Signature Theatre has announced casting and the creative team for Fires in the Mirror, by Obie, Drama Desk and MacArthur Award winner Anna Deavere Smith, featuring Michael Benjamin Washington (The Boys in the Band) and and directed by Saheem Ali. Tickets, priced at $35 thanks to the Signature Ticket Initiative, are on sale now for the production, which runs October 22 to November 24, 2019 with a Monday, November 11th opening night in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatreat The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues). Click here for more information.

"Anna Deavere Smith is a groundbreaking documentary theatre-maker. We're thrilled to be celebrating her extraordinary vision and sharing her singular body of work with our audiences. We'll start Anna's Residency 1 with Fires in the Mirror, in its first major production since it premiered in New York more than 25 years ago. The play's themes and insights remain unsettlingly resonant today, and we're excited to welcome director Saheem Ali and actor Michael Benjamin Washington as they re-examine Anna's seminal text." - Artistic Director, Paige Evans

The creative team for Fires in the Mirror includes Arnulfo Maldonado (Scenic Design), Dede M. Ayite (Costume Design), Alan C. Edwards (Lighting Design), Mikaal Sulaiman (Sound Design) and Hannah Wasileski (Projection Design), and Dawn-Elin Fraser (Dialect Coach). The Production Stage Manager is Alfredo Macias and Casting is by Caparelliotis Casting.

There are three sides to every story: yours, mine and the truth. Following the deaths of a Black American boy and a young Orthodox Jewish scholar in the summer of 1991, underlying racial tensions in the nestled community of Crown Heights, Brooklyn erupted into civil outbreak. Fires in the Mirror was Anna Deavere Smith's groundbreaking response. Birthed from a series of interviews with over fifty members of the Jewish and Black communities, the Drama Desk award-winning work translated their voices verbatim, and in the process revolutionized the genre of documentary theatre. As much provocation as it is exploration, this landmark play launches Anna Deavere Smith's Residency 1 at Signature.

The groundbreaking Signature Ticket Initiative: A Generation of Access, which recently celebrated its one-millionth ticket sold, is a program that guarantees affordable tickets to every Signature production through 2031. Serving as a model for theatres and performing arts organizations across the country, the Initiative was founded in 2005 and is made possible by lead partner The Pershing Square Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, Margot Adams, The SHS Foundation, Consolidated Edison Company of New York, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

To purchase tickets for all Signature Productions call Ticket Services at 212-244-7529 (Tues. - Sun., 11am - 6pm) or visit www.SignatureTheatre.org.