If the current Broadway lineup is an indication, Black women still face an uphill battle in mainstream theater representation. Sure, “Hamilton” is running, and Alicia Keys’ “Hell’s Kitchen” is hotly anticipated, but that hardly lives up to the promise of 2020, a supposedly watershed moment for theater in which established companies vowed to open their doors to marginalized voices.
For veteran Bay Area performer, director and administrator Margo Hall, it is clear what is still missing.
“In my personal opinion, we are missing the portrayal of Black females and transwomen [as] intellectuals. [And] Black roles in politics and academia,” says Hall, artistic director of San Francisco’s Lorraine Hansberry Theatre since 2021.
Asked about what she has learned as LHT director so far, Hall answers, “There are many lessons, but the most important is to trust my vision and understand that creating art takes time.”
Hall’s vision involves leading a charge to provide opportunities to Black women. LHT’s New Black Voices program pairs established female-identifying Black playwrights with parallel apprentices for one year. Apprentices are commissioned to write a new work as the mentors guide them through the process.
This year’s entry, at Fort Mason Center from May 1-5, is “(NO MORE) Adjustments,” a solo show exploring Black sexuality and neurodivergence written by and starring Bay Area theater regular Champagne Hughes.
LHT Production Manager Julius Rea suggested the show to Hall, who agreed that Hughes’ piece would be a great candidate for the New Black Voices Initiative: “I have known Champagne for many years, and I have directed her on a few projects, so I thought it was a great idea,” says Hall.
The other 2024 LHT production is Lisa B. Thompson’s “The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body,” which will be featured in a free staged reading on Feb. 24 at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco and onstage at Fort Mason in September.
Directed by Hall, the play combines poetry, dance and more to explore Black womanhood (including gender identity) and feminism from personal, social, and economic perspectives —all of which speak deeply to Hall.
“Feminism is the sense of radical empowerment and self-acceptance,” she says. “Lisa has created a poetic mixtape celebrating the love of self through ritual, dance and community healing of the Black female body.”
Hall also wants to nourish local talent, something that admittedly has grown difficult in recent years due to the high cost of living in the Bay Area. “It can be challenging, [but] it’s essential to think outside the box and explore new ways to grow talent,” she says.
“One solution is to reach out to local colleges and performance training institutions. I directed a production of ‘In the Red and Brown Water’ at UC Berkeley, where only three actors out of the eight-character play were students in the program. Most of the actors were from the African American Studies Department and had never been on stage before. They had only performed at church or summer camps. It’s important to remember that the talent is here. You just have to be patient and willing to give someone a chance.”
Speaking to mainstream theater’s lack of movement toward being inclusive, Hall suggests that the very companies that vowed to make improvements in 2020 had little interest in doing so.
“Regrettably, some predominantly white institutions appointed people of color to artistic director positions without providing them with the necessary support to succeed. This was often a knee-jerk reaction to the current moment and was not fully thought through. Many institutions made grand statements but failed to follow through with concrete action,” she says.
Yet under Hall’s leadership, LHT has produced and directed critically acclaimed world premieres including Traci Tolmaire’s “In the Evening by the Moonlight,” which imagines a rowdy gathering of playwright Hansberry, singer Nina Simone and writer James Baldwin.
In more than 30 years, Hall has built a reputation as one of the region’s most gifted actors and directors, working at American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, San Francisco Playhouse and Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.
Founded in 1981, LHT at 620 Sutter St. became a go-to destination for Black theater lovers, but it later lost the downtown venue, and weathered the deaths of co-founders Stanley E. Williams and Quentin Easter in 2010. Several interim artistic directors held the post until Hall stepped in.
Hall, also a founding member of Campo Santo, a multicultural Bay Area theater ensemble known for premiering new material, connected with Campo Santo cofounder and Magic Theatre Artistic Director Sean San José to give LHT a new home in Magic’s Fort Mason Center.
Another of Hall’s aspirations is to find a new physical venue for LHT.
“Our ultimate goal is to have our own theater space,” she says. “It’s disheartening that the only two Black theater companies in San Francisco [LHT and the African-American Shakespeare Company] do not have a home,” she says, adding, “We are very happy at the Magic, and using the space has allowed us to continue producing work and stay connected to our supporters.”
Hall maintains that the presence of Black women in theater is something that needs to be nourished and supported on both sides of the fourth wall.
“We would love to have a more diverse group of young folks in our seats! We are interested in what they want to see. Hopefully, we can develop outreach programs to connect with the under-thirty crowd,” she says.
Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s free reading of “The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body” is at 2 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Museum of the African Diaspora, Mission St., San Francisco. To RSVP, go here. For information about LHT’s full season, visit lhtsf.org.
Charles Lewis III is a San Francisco-born journalist and performing artist. He has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED and the San Francisco Examiner. Dodgy evidence of this can be found at The Thinking Man’s Idiot.wordpress.com.