Katori Hall // Memphis native Katori Hall is a Pulitzer Prize and Olivier Award-winning playwright and television creator/producer. A two-time Tony Award nominee, she won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, The Hot Wing King. Her other works include The Mountaintop, Our Lady of Kibeho, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, The Blood Quilt, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, and Hurt Village, which is being developed into a feature film. She’s also the executive producer and showrunner of “P-VALLEY,” the critically acclaimed and ground-breaking Starz drama based on her play Pussy Valley. Katori is an alumna of Columbia University, A.R.T. at Harvard University, and Juilliard. Katori has been published in publications such as The Boston Globe, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Katori’s other awards include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York (PONY) Fellowship, two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, NYFA Fellowship, the Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement, National Black Theatre’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. She is a proud member of the Ron Brown Scholar Program and the Coca-Cola Scholar Program. 

Tinashe Kajese-Bolden is an award-winning Director, Actor, and Producer. She is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award for Directing.  Recent directing credits include Toni Stone (co-production between Milwaukee Repertory Theater and Alliance Theatre), The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd and Nick’s Flamingo Grill (World Premieres at the Alliance Theatre), School Girls, Or the African Mean Girls Play (Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre), Ghost (Alliance Theatre), Native Gardens (Virginia Stage Company), Pipeline (Horizon Theater), and Eclipsed (Synchronicity Theatre, Best Director Suzi Bass Award). She has also worked as a director and actor regionally and on and off Broadway.  As the BOLD Associate Artistic Director at Alliance Theatre, Kajese-Bolden stewarded the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab, cultivating new works for Atlanta-based artists, and oversaw the Spelman Leadership Fellowship, the first mentorship program of its kind partnering a regional theatre with an historically Black college and university to offer paid career opportunities for students interested in arts leadership positions.