Crown Heights Riots Retold In Off-Broadway Production

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — The Crown Heights riots of 1991 are the subject of a new production coming to Broadway, courtesy of the renowned television actress and historian to whom President Obama once gave the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal.

Anna Deveare Smith — whose long resume includes a starring role in Shonda Rhimes' "For the People" and parts in "Black-ish," "Nurse Jackie" and "West Wing" — will showcase her talents as a journalist and playwright in an upcoming production of "Fires In the Mirror," which retells a violent moment in Crown Heights history.

Deveare Smith's play tells the story of the four-day riot — spurred by the death of 7-year-old Gavin Cato in a car crash on Aug. 19 and the fatal stabbing of a Hasidic man named Yankel Rosenbaum three hours later — through the eyes of witnesses, community members and experts whom she interviewed, recorded and portrayed.

"Some people call what I do journalism," Deveare Smith says in an introductory interview of an American Playhouse production of her show. "But I haven't been trained that way so I never called myself one."

The one-woman show won a Drama Desk Award and launched Deveare Smith into a new form of writing plays which she has since used to explore mass incarceration, poverty and inequities within America's education system.

While Deveare Smith initially portrayed all the characters herself in the original 1992 production, this latest retelling will feature actor Michael Benjamin Washington, who recently finished filming "The Boys In The Band" for Netflix, according to a Deadline report.

"Fires In the Mirror" will be presented at the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theater at 480 W. 42nd St. from Oct. 22 through Nov. 24 and tickets cost $35.