Oakland actor named as Hansberry’s first female artistic director
Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, the Bay Area’s leading stage company devoted to African American works, has named revered Oakland actor and director Margo Hall as its new artistic director.
Hall, who in a career spanning three decades has appeared on the stages of practically every leading Bay Area theater company — and in countless regional productions of works by Black playwrights, including August Wilson, Zora Neale Hurston, Marcus Gardley, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Dominique Morisseau, Lynn Nottage
and others — takes over the post from interim managers Aldo Billingslea and Darryl V. Jones.
She becomes the company’s first full-time artistic director since Steven Anthony Jones retired in 2017.
She assumes the mantle under circumstances that few would have imagined a year ago, at a time when most theaters are dark because of the coronavirus pandemic, when civil rights issues have gained renewed urgency with the deaths of George Floyd and other people of color at the hands of police officers, and at a time when minority voices are demanding to be better represented in theater, film and other areas of the arts.
“I am thrilled to assume this position now,” Hall said Wednesday in a statement, “during this dynamic, pivotal moment in our cultural history, as the nation turns its focus to Black lives. This is an extraordinary opportunity to reach new levels of participation and offer meaningful and compelling works that speak to the Black community’s issues, challenges, dreams and accomplishments.”
To that end, the San Francisco company also announced it was creating the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Fund for New Black Voices, with the long-term goal of producing works by rising Black playwrights, choreographers, directors and others in the stage and performing arts.
“Black artists, and to a greater degree Black female and nonbinary theater makers, are not receiving the representation they deserve on our stages,” Hall said. “Transforming the systemic racism of the American theater demands financial investment.”
Noting that the company’s groundbreaking namesake was the first Black female playwright to have a work produced on Broadway (“A Raisin in the Sun,” in 1959), Hall said: “I aim to make this mission central to the operations of this theater as its artistic director, further establishing the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre as the place where emerging Black playwrights find a haven to develop their voices.”
In Hall, the 39-year-old Lorraine Hansberry Theatre has its first female artistic director. But company Executive Director Stephanie Shoffner pointed to Hall’s artistic and personal qualities as the key reason for her hire.
“She is an indelible force of nature in the Bay Area theater community and outspoken advocate for artists of color,” Shoffner said. “Margo is also a talented actress and director, whose incredible intellect and ability to inhabit complex characters influences her aptitude for bringing thrilling new works to life. Together, we look forward to ushering in a new chapter for the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, one focused on nurturing and promoting exciting new Black theater makers in the spirit of our namesake.”
Hall’s selection quickly drew praise in the theater world. Among those issuing support was award-winning playwright Dominique Morisseau, whose drama “Skeleton Crew” was presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in a 2018 production in which Hall starred.
“Margo Hall is an extraordinary Bay Area artist and visionary,” Morisseau said. “Since first meeting her many moons ago through Bay Area Playwrights Festival, I felt a kindred spirit and a trust in her as a director that she would fully protect the integrity of my work. I’m thrilled to know that so many more artists will have the pleasure of working with her and being nurtured by her vision. It’s exactly the way things ought to be.”
“The Lorraine Hansberry couldn’t be getting a greater gift that they will in Margo Hall,” said Tony Award-winning actor Anika Noni Rose.
“An amazing theater artist, she is well versed in both classical and contemporary works and has a deep well of knowledge of Black theater.”
Across the bay, Orindabased California Shakespeare Theater director Eric Ting eagerly endorsed the move.
“I can think of no fiercer advocate, no greater champion for artists, than Margo Hall,” said Ting” That she has chosen to bring that mighty voice to the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre offers me, especially in this moment, such great hope.”
Though stage companies everywhere are grappling with the fact theaters can’t accommodate audiences during the pandemic, Hall and Lorraine Hansberry have an additional challenge: finding a permanent home for the company.
Lorraine Hansberry’s de facto home is Buriel Clay Theater at the African American Art and Culture Complex on San Francisco’s Fulton Street.
“The sad truth is most Black theaters in American are lacking a permanent space to nurture our artists and to provide them resources to develop their works. With the help of our community, I hope we can realize that dream for our company.”