RIOT By Lydia Marchant This play was commissioned as part of TEN and first performed in March 2019 by 55 members of Hull Truck Theatre’s Young Company. TEN featured 10 ten-minute plays, each based on a year in the decade since Hull Truck Theatre moved in to its Ferensway home. This play was inspired by the riots since across the UK during summer 2011. Plot This play imagines a fictional riot in Hull in 2011, offers insight into the many reasons that young people may feel disenfranchised and why some felt the need to lash out. Notes: Recommended for 14+. This play contains some mild swearing with the references to anti-social behavior such as rioting, vandalism and underaged drinking. This play was written for a group of young people to perform as an ensemble which means that they take a shared responsibility for telling story rather than playing individual characters. However, if there is a character name in bold on the left then the dialogue on the right should be spoken by that character. A straight black horizontal line may represent a change in topic, location or lapse in time. About the playwright: Lydia Marchant wrote her first play for Hull Truck Theatre’s Young Writers Festival when she was 13. She was Young Writer in Residence between 2012 and 2015 and is now an Affiliate Artist. Her work for Hull Truck Theatre includes THE EXPENDABLES (2012), SPLIT (2015), DEFIANCE (2017), LEFTOVERS (2018), TEN PLAYS (2019) and MUMSY (2019). Lydia is part of the BBC’s Writers Academy, led by John Yorke, for which she is writing episodes of EASTENDERS, CASUALTY and HOLBY CITY. She also has work in development with Cuba Pictures and BBC Factual. She is Associate Writer of The Roaring Girls, with whom she developed BEACH BODY READY, and has also worked with companies including Middle Child, Silent Uproar, York Theatre Royal, Derby Theatre and Paines Plough. She has a Distinction in MA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and trained on writers programmes including Writing Squad, Leeds Playhouse, National Theatre, Soho Theatre, Royal Court and BFI.
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