Rise Up

Winner of Best Play for Young Audiences in the Writers' Guild Awards 2016

The tide was turning - though local governments disagreed, it would soon be illegal to segregate black Americans from white Americans on public buses, in waiting rooms or in restaurants. And yet - in the early 1960s, many states across the south of America kept discriminating against African-Americans... In modern day Britain, four actor-storytellers tell the stories of the Freedom Riders - principled citizens riding buses across Alabama and Mississippi, drawing attention to this illegal discrimination, and facing up to terrifying violence with peaceful resistance. The story of the Freedom Riders is one of ordinary people becoming a civil rights movement, taking on the establishment and changing the world. In a time of Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin, and Mark Duggan, what does it mean for people to come together and rise up?

Autorentext

Lisa Evans writes for theatre, radio and television. Her original stage plays include Keep Smiling Through (Theatre by the Lake); Glory Glory (Duke's Lancaster); The Day the Waters Came (Theatre Centre); Up The Duff (Theatre Royal, York); Once We Were Mothers (New Vic, Stoke); Getting to the Foot of the Mountain (Birmingham Rep) ; Christmas Without Herods (Women's Theatre Group); Stamping, Shouting and Singing Home (Watford) She has adapted The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; East Lynne; Villette; The Maid of Buttermere; Frankenstein; and Jamaica Inn for the stage. In November 2011 Lisa was awarded the Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for Best Play for Children and Young People for The Day the Waters Came. Website: www.lisaevans.co.uk