About the Play:

Winner of the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award.

Riot is a full-length drama by Andrew Moodie. A dramatic and often humorous look at the lives of six young black Torontonians of socially diverse backgrounds sharing a house in the days of leading up to the verdict of white L.A. police officers in the assault case of Rodney King, a black man. That trial was famous for a citizen's video of King being beaten by the cops. Riot is the first play to truly reflect the identity of second-to-ninth-generation blacks in Canada.

Riot focuses on the lives of six black men and women in their 20s and 30s who share who share living quarters in Toronto and freely exchange views. They range from a Nova Scotia man whose black Canadian roots go back several generations to a Jamaican-born woman raised in Montreal. It is set in May, 1992 and their lives unfold against the backdrop of civil unrest, which erupted after the acquittal by a white California jury of white Los Angeles cops who beat up black motorist Rodney King (an event captured on that notorious video). There were riots in L.A. and a demonstration held in Toronto began peacefully but got out of hand. Riot shows the effect of this upheaval as the fracas outside keeps intruding as the six characters find themselves drawn into it, in one way or another.

Riot premiered in 1995 at Factory Theatre in Toronto and won the 1996 Chalmers Award for Best New Play. Since then it has been performed across Canada, including Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax.

Cast: 2 women, 4 men

What people say:

"Boisterous, intimate, entertaining and enlightening." — The Globe and Mail

"[Riot] triumphantly transcends racial issues and becomes a useful metaphor for what it means to be a Canadian...." — The Toronto Star

"...a scrappy, fresh little item... there are flashes of a very similar play, Kennedy's Children by Robert Patrick. But where Kennedy's lamented the 70s, Riot laments a nation that could be so great if it just tried a little harder (the last moment of the piece is quite patriotic)." — Hour Magazine

"Moodie crams in so many issues that some can't be dealt with adequately...." — The Halifax Herald

About the Playwright:

Andrew Moodie is an Ottawa-born and raised actor, with extensive stage, film, and television credits. He exploded onto the theatre scene in 1995 with his first play, Riot, which won the Chalmers Canadian Play Award. Since then he has been a mainstay of Canadian television and theatre, both as an actor and a writer.