MARGO HALL actor/director/playwright. Acting credits include: Marin Theater Company- Gem of the Ocean, Fences and Seven Guitars. California Shakespeare Theater- Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Raisin in the Sun, A Winter’s Tale, American Night: the Ballad of Juan Jose and SPUNK. American Conservatory Theater- Ah, Wilderness!, Once in a Lifetime and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet. Aurora Theater- Alice Childresses’ Trouble in Mind. Shotgun Players- Marcus Gardley’s A World in a Woman’s Hands. For Campo Santo* – 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 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 in The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston, The Blues I’m Playing by Langston Hughes and All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P Jones.
She debuted as a Director with The World Premiere of Joyride, from the novel Grand Avenue by Greg Sarris, which won 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 also directed Mission Indians, a new play by Greg Sarris, with Nancy Benjamin. She CO-Directed Erin Cressida Wilson’s award winning The Trail of Her Inner Thigh with Rhodessa Jones. She also directed Hotel Angulo, and Simpatico for Campo Santo. Other directing credits include Red Velvet, and The Story for SF Playhouse. She toured France with Word for Word’s Sonny’s Blues, a story by James Baldwin., and Shotgun Players- Brownsville Song, (B-Side for Tray), and co-directed Bulrusher with Ellen Chang. Chabot College- Hamlet Blood in the Brain, Fabulation, SPUNK, The Trojan Women, It Falls, Ragtime, and A Streetcar Named Desire. For UC Berkeley- Polaroid Stories.
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 a 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 2012 she premiered her semi biographical piece, Be Bop Baby, a Musical Memoir, at Z Space, featuring Marcus Shelby’s 15 piece Orchestra in which she played herself. The musical chronicled her life growing up in Detroit with her jazz musician stepfather who was with Motown. Original music composed by Marcus Shelby.
*She is a founding member of Campo Santo, a resident theater company at Intersection for the Arts.