author: Chris Pence
The More Things Change: “Fires in the Mirror” at Laurel Mill Playhouse
What defines us, and what defines our views of the world? Is it our race? Gender? Religion? Culture? The community in which we live, or to which we belong? Laurel Mill Playhouse gives us a moment to reflect on these and many more questions in presenting Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights,
Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel has local origins; originally a co-production between Baltimore’s Center Stage and California’s South Coast Repertory in 2003, it went on to a 3-month Off-Broadway run starring Viola Davis. The material also has a direct link to Nottage’s family history and was inspired by her great-grandmother’s life as a seamstress in the early 1900’s. Nottage found that the narrative and stories of black women in the early 1900’s were largely absent by researching her great-grandmother’s life.