FIRES IN THE MIRROR will open on Friday, March 26 and run through Sunday, April 25, 2021.
Firehouse Theatre has announced that it has added Anna Deavere Smith's groundbreaking FIRES IN THE MIRROR to its SEASON OF DISCOVERY. The solo performance features Jamar Jones and is directed by Katrinah Carol Lewis. FIRES IN THE MIRROR will open on Friday, March 26 and run through Sunday, April 25, 2021.
The full title of Smith's play is FIRES IN THE MIRROR: CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN AND OTHER IDENTITIES. She wrote the play after the Crown Heights neighborhood erupted in three days of violent race riots in August, 1991. The riots were incited by the death of Gavin Cato, a seven year old Black boy who was the son of Guyanese immigrants. He was playing on the sidewalk near his apartment and was killed when one of the cars in Rebbe Menachem Schneerson's motorcade jumped the curb. Schneerson was the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Jewish community. The violence quickly escalated and later that evening Yankel Rosenbaum, an Orthodox Jewish rabbinical student who was visiting from Austria, was murdered by a group of Black youths in retaliation for Cato's death. TIME Magazine was among the many news outlets that reported that the Crown Heights riots were "the worst episode of racial violence in New York City since 1968, after the death of Martin Luther King."Videos