Anna Deavere Smith, the woman who wrote Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, is now turning inward. Her new play, Basil Biggs, traces the life of her great-great-grandfather, an illiterate Gettysburg farmer, veterinarian, and free Black man who was hired to disinter and rebury Union soldiers after the Civil War’s deadliest battle. Using archival material, and timed to the country’s 250th anniversary, Smith creates a portrait of a man—and a family—living through a time of historic upheaval. —Jeanne Malle