MARGO HALL

is an award-winning actor, director, playwright, educator, and the Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. She was recently awarded the 2021 Kenneth Rainin Fellowship in Theater and listed as one of the YBCA 100 honorees for 2020.

She was last seen onstage in Josephine’s Feast by Star Finch for Campo Santo and Magic Theatre. Other acting credits include Black Odyssey*, Fences, Twelfth Night, A Raisin in the Sun, A Winter’s Tale, American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose and SPUNK for the California Shakespeare Theater, JAZZ, Skeleton Crew, Gem of the Ocean, Fences and Seven Guitars for Marin Theater Company. Ah! Wilderness, Once in a Lifetime, and Marcus or the Secret of Sweet* at The American Conservatory Theater. Exit Strategy and Trouble in Mind*, at the Aurora Theater, Marcus Gardley’s A World in a Woman’s Hands for Shotgun Players. Barbecue* (also directed), and MF with a Hat at SF Playhouse.

Some of her acting credits for Campo Santo** include Dennis Johnson’s Nobody Move, Chinaka Hodges' Mirrors in Every Corner, Jessica Hagedorn's Fe in the Desert and Stairway to Heaven, and Naomi Iizuka’s Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, 17 Reasons (Why) and Polaroid Stories, floating weeds, a world premier by Philip Kan Gotanda, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, by Jose Rivera, Bethlehem by Octavio Solis, and Hurricane, by Erin Cressida Wilson. She has toured France with Word for Word as Missie May in The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston and Oceola in The Blues I’m Playing by Langston Hughes.

Margo’s recent film credits include Louise in Bottled Spirits, Leslie White in All Day and a Night, Nancy in Blindspotting, and the voice of Melba in Pixar’s SOUL. TV credits include Nancy in Blindspotting- STARZ, Helen in Chances- Hulu, Marsha Watkins, and Blind Witness on Nash Bridges.

She debuted as a Theater Director with The World Premiere of Joyride, from the novel Grand Avenue by Greg Sarris, which was the Bay Area Critics Circle Winner for Best Original Script; the SF Weekly Black Box Awards for Best Production, Best Ensemble, Best Director; Drama-Logue Awards- Northern California for Best Production, Best Ensemble; the Backstage West-Garland Awards- Northern California for Best Production, Best Ensemble, and the Bay Guardian GOLDIE Award Winner for Stage. She recently directed Soulful Christmas for Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and Nollywood Dreams for SF Playhouse. Hieroglyph by Erika Dickerson-Despenza was a co-pro for LHT and SF Playhouse. The play was filmed live onstage and streamed virtually. Other LHT credits include Thurgood and Rejoice! Other directing credits include How I Learned What I Learned for Lorraine Hansberry Theater, Ubuntu and MTC-Co-production, Nollywood Dreams, Barbecue, Red Velvet and The Story, an SF Playhouse/Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Co-Production. Prior directing credits include Sonny’s Blues, a story by James Baldwin, for Word for Word, which toured France. She co-directed Bulrusher with Ellen Chang, a play by Eisa Davis, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Once on This Island, Hamlet, Blood in the Brain, SPUNK, The Trojan Women, It Falls, Ragtime, and A Streetcar Named Desire for Chabot College.

 Margo completed her first writing project in April 2005 with the World Premier of The People’s Temple at Berkeley Repertory Theater, which won the Glickman award for best new play in the Bay Area for 2005.  She was part of a collaborative team of four writers who used interviews of survivors and archival material to form a play exploring the People’s Temple movement and the tragic ending at Jonestown. The play went on from Berkeley Rep. to The Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska, and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Margo is also part of the acting ensemble. In 2013, she premiered her semi-biographical piece, Be Bop Baby, a Musical Memoir, at Z Space, featuring the 15-piece Marcus Shelby Orchestra, which chronicled her life growing up in Detroit with her jazz musician stepfather who was with Motown. The lyrics and book are by Margo Hall, with original music composed by Marcus Shelby.  She recently co-created and directed the world premiere production of In The Evening by The Moonlight, a play by Traci Tolmaire about Lorraine Hansberry with Nina Simone and James Baldwin for LHT.

**She is a founding member of Campo Santo, a multicultural Theater Company in San Francisco *Theater Bay Area, best actress recipient