Dominique Morisseau & Katori Hall to Debut New Plays as Part of Signature's 2019-2020 Season

Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre has announced six productions comprising its 2019-2020 season. A pair of world premieres, a New York debut and three revivals make up the slate of works, all of which will play the Pershing Square Signature Center.

Kicking off the season will be a new staging of acclaimed monologuist Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror (October 22-November 24, 2019), directed by Saheem Ali. Based on real events, the play follows the deaths of an African-American boy and a young Orthodox Jewish scholar in the summer of 1991, as underlying racial tensions affect the community of Crown Heights and a civil outbreak erupts.

Next up at Signature will be a revival of Horton Foote's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Young Man from Atlanta (November 5-December 8, 2019), directed by Michael Wilson. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly modernizing 1950s Houston, the drama centers on an aging couple still reeling from the death of their only child.

Signature will next offer up the New York premiere of Lauren Yee's play with music Cambodian Rock Band (February 4-March 8, 2020). Chay Yew will direct the electric new work, which tells the story of a Khmer Rouge survivor returning back to Cambodia for the first time in 30 years as his daughter prepares to help prosecute one of the most infamous war criminals.

Next up at Signature will be The Hot Wing King (February 11-March 15, 2020), a world premiere comedy by Katori Hall (The Mountaintop, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical), directed by Steve H. Broadnax III. The play is set during the annual Hot Wang Festival in Memphis, Tennessee, where Cordell Crutchfield is marinating and firing up his frying pan in a bid to win yet again. When his beau Dwayne takes in his troubled nephew, however, a first-place trophy isn't the only thing Cordell risks losing.

Signature will next present the revival of another Anna Deavere Smith play, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (April 28-May 31, 2020), directed by Taibi Magar. A transformative study of the 1992 L.A. riots, the play takes place as the news of the police officers' acquittal in Rodney King's police brutality case reverberates throughout the streets of Los Angeles.

Closing out the season will be Confederates (May 12-June 14, 2020), a world premiere by Dominique Morisseau (Paradise Blue, Ain't Too Proud), directed by Kamilah Forbes. The play centers on Sarah, a savvy slave turned Union spy, and Sandra, a brilliant professor in a modern-day private university, as they face similar struggles, even though they live more than a century apart.

Casting and additional creative team members for Signature's 2019-2020 season will be announced at a later date.