Black Theatre Night
Join us for Black Theatre Night! An affinity night championing Black Theatre-makers and the vibrant Black community of Bucks County and beyond.
Feb 21, 2025
Refreshments: 7pm | Showtime 8PM
Experience Fires in the Mirror, light refreshments at a pre-show social mixer, and an optional post-show conversation with director Amy Kaissar, the show’s star Phyllis Johnson, and other distinguished guests.
Fires in the Mirror: In the summer of 1991, Crown Heights, NY exploded into three days of violence fed by rumors and competing narratives formed from incomplete facts. In the chaos, some saw anti-Black police bias. Others saw violent anti-Semitism. But playwright Anna Deavere Smith heard the honest voices of a divided national narrative. Join us for this remarkable play that features the real words of more than 50 people, interviewed immediately after the events, speaking honestly, the way we do in private. Let’s listen
BASED ON TRUE EVENTS • POWERFUL • EMOTIONAL
Phyllis Johnson works in Theater, Film, TV, & Voice Over. Nominated for two NY Innovative Theatre Awards, Phyllis understudied A Naked Girl on the Appian Way/Doug Hughes, Director (Broadway). Recent TV projects include Zero Day (Netflix) starring Robert DeNiro, Equalizer (NBC), Uncoupled (Netflix), Law & Order: Season 22 (NBC), Blue Bloods (CBS), and Pose (FX). Phyllis is a voice actor and has leant her voice to 400+ film/TV episodes including Oscar winners and favorites such as Black Swan, American Gangster, and The Devil Wears Prada. She executive produced the award-winning film I’m Through with White Girls. Phyllis is a graduate of the David Geffen Yale School of Drama where she won the Fox Family Foundation Grant and The Oliver Thorndike Prize.
About Black Theatre Night at BRT
- Black Theatre Night affirms and celebrates Black-theatre makers. It is BRT’s intention to transcend barriers to storytelling by creating an environment that welcomes deeper cultural sensory experiences for our vibrant local Black community.
- BRT strives to create an inclusive and welcoming space for our diverse audiences.
- We are committed to producing and elevating the work of artists of color.
- Through community outreach, we work collaboratively with our partners to make the event more widely accessible through reduced pricing.
- Black theatre performances, originated in 2019 with Jeremy O. Harris’ Broadway hit Slave Play.
- Black theatre performances have since spread to theaters in Boston, London, D.C, Philadelphia, and now Bristol, PA
“It’s not a ‘blacks only’ theatre performance, it’s an affinity night for black audience members to rectify the decades of exclusion from theaters in their communities. This is not segregation but an attempt at radically integrating a theatre-going audience that is underserved.”
– Jeremy O. Harris
Important Event Information
- Free parking.
- Refreshments will be served.
- Wheelchair accessible; assisted listening devices available.
The play will take place at Bristol Riverside Theatre located at 120 Radcliffe Street, Bristol, PA.