Rehearsal for reading at DC’s Spooky Action Theatre 2018

White cops and black kids. Why neighbor turns against neighbor – seemingly overnight. The truth is, it’s never overnight. It’s a lifetime of unanswered injustices, large and small, that add up to an explosion of anger.

• Finalist: O’Neill National Playwriting Conference

• Finalist, Larry Neal Writing Award

3 m, 2f - 2 acts Available for premiere

The play takes place on the 25th anniversary of the LA riots at ground zero – the exact spot where the anger exploded over not-guilty verdicts in the Rodney King beating case. The burnt-out liquor store and gas station are gone, replaced by a youth recreation center named after Scott Andrews, the cop who got his brains bashed in during the first moments of the unrest.

Andrews is reunited with his former partner Mike Marcott, who’s running for Congress. His campaign ad features famous TV footage of him rescuing his LAPD partner Scott Andrews on the first night of the LA Riots. But the ad is giving him nightmares. Also on hand for the grand opening: the Latina community activist who built the center, an African-American grad student researching the 92 Rebellion, and a ghost from the LA Riots: Charles Baldwin, a mysterious African-American entrepreneur who knows what really happened the night Los Angeles went up in flames.

Rehearsals at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival

Development:

Spooky Action Theater, Washington DC Theater Alliance, Washington DC Kennedy Center Page to Stage, Washington Ensemble Studio Theatre, LA Mainstage: Great Plains Theatre Conference, Omaha