Amanda Parris is an award winning playwright, columnist and tv/radio host. Amanda was the host of the award-winning series, CBC Arts: Exhibitionists from 2015-2020. At the time, it was the only show on television dedicated to telling stories about Canadian artists across all mediums. She also created Black Light, an award-winning column for CBC Arts, that showcases, historicizes and critically engages art and popular culture created by Black people.

 

Amanda’s debut play Other Side of the Game (2019) was awarded the Governor General Literary Award for Drama and is currently being taught in classrooms across the country. Her latest theatrical work, The Death News (2020) was part of Obsidian Theatre’s groundbreaking project 21 Black Futures and in 2021 she made her directorial debut with her award winning short film The Death Doula.

 

Amanda has been named one of Grenada’s Top 40 individuals under the age of 40, one of Toronto’s Most Inspiring Women by Post-City, a Local Hero of Toronto Film by Now Magazine and received the Rising Star Award from AfroGlobalTelevision. In the spring of 2022, Amanda’s scripted digital series Revenge of the Black Best Friend (RBBF), which follows a self-help guru whose singular mission is to cancel the entertainment industry’s reliance on token Black characters, will premiere on CBC Gem.