A Rolling World Premiere
THE BLACK FEMINIST GUIDE TO THE HUMAN BODY
Written by: Lisa B. Thompson
Directed by: Margo Hall
PERFORMANCES
September 19 - October 6, 2024
Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
“The Black Feminist Guide” is a magnificent collage that honors African American foremothers and moves us into the present—a beautiful and moving exploration of life."
“A hearty Amen! to 'The Black Feminist Guide'"
A daring celebration of life and the resilience of Black women, The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body marks Lisa B. Thompson’s triumphant return to the Bay Area in a rolling world premiere celebrating the joys and challenges of growing older and wiser.
These scholars, mothers, and leaders have given everything for our communities, having spent decades doing CPR on the nation, and have left too little for themselves. ‘The Black Feminist Guide’ offers validation, self-love and a collective exhale by centering the voices and lived experiences of Black women: past and present. Thompson’s new work is not only a joyous, raucous, spiritual event, but it is a love letter to Black women and their families—knowing that in spite of it all, we are still here.
NEW! WATCH A PREVIEW
“I’ve had a beautiful experience developing this choreopoem,” says playwright Lisa B. Thompson. “I love watching audiences become enthralled by the delicate poetry, lush history and sweet melodies of Black womanhood. I’m absolutely delighted that Margo Hall will helm the final production of The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body this year.”
PRODUCTION PHOTOS
Jacinta Kaumbulu, Paige Mayes, Phaedra Tillery-Boughton. Photo Credit: Alejandro Ramos
CAST & CREATIVE TEAM
Beatrice: Jacinta Kaumbulu
Cee Cee: Paige Mayes*
Dee: Phaedra Tillery-Boughton*
Playwright: Lisa B. Thompson
Director: Margo Hall
Assistant Director: Jan Hunter
Dramaturg: Amissa Miller
Understudies: Asia Jackson (Cee Cee, Dee), Jan Hunter (Bea)
Props & Set Designer: Brittany Mellerson
Costume Designer: Jasmine Milan Williams
Lighting Designer: M.D. Combs
Sound Designer: Alex Fakayode
Projections/Video Designer: Tajiana Okechukwu
Choreography: Kendra Barnes
Stage Manager: Vanessa Hill
Illustrator: Jennifer McNeal
Production Manager: Julius Rea
*Members of Actors Equity Association
REHEARSAL PHOTOS
Jacinta Kaumbulu, Paige Mayes, Phaedra Tillery-Boughton
ABOUT NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT
The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by SEW Productions Inc, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. VORTEX Repertory Company, FUSEBOX AUSTIN, Pyramid Theatre Company, and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org
BIOS
LISA B. THOMPSON, Playwright
LISA B. THOMPSON is an award-winning artist/scholar whose satirical comedies, poignant dramas, and insightful criticism question stereotypes about Black life in the US, particularly the experiences of the Black middle class. The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body is a finalist for the American Theatre in Higher Education’s 2024 Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award. Her plays have been produced Off-Broadway, throughout the US, and internationally by Crossroads Theatre, Theatre Rhinoceros, the Vortex, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 1st Stage Theatre, Austin Playhouse, Soul Rep Theatre Company, The Ensemble Theatre, New Professional Theatre, Pyramid Theatre Company, The Billie Holiday Theatre, Chiswick Playhouse, and The National Black Theatre Festival among others.
Thompson is the author of Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class (University of Illinois Press, 2009), Single Black Female (Samuel French, 2012), Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays (Northwestern University Press, 2020), and The Mamalogues (Samuel French, 2021). She has also published articles and reviews in Theatre Journal, Journal of American Drama, Theatre Survey, NPR, Criterion Collection, Huffington Post and The Washington Post. Her creative and scholarly work has received support from a number of institutions including the American Council of Learned Societies, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, Millay Arts, National Performance Network, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Clayman Institute for Gender Research, W. E. B. DuBois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center, The Fusebox International Festival, and Texas Performing Arts.
This fall Thompson will begin the third season as co-host and co-producer of Black Austin Matters, a podcast and radio segment on KUT: Austin’s NPR station that explores Black life, culture, and politics in Central Texas. She is currently the Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and affiliate faculty in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin. Thompson also serves as the College of Liberal Arts’ Advisor to the Dean for Faculty Mentoring and Support.
Learn more about this nationally acclaimed playwright at https://lisabthompson.com/
MARGO HALL, Director
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 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 Garuda’s Wing for Campo Santo 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 Soulful Christmas, Thurgood, and Rejoice! Other directing credits include How I Learned What I Learned for Lorraine Hansberry Theater, Ubuntu and MTC-Co-production, 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, In the Red and Brown Water, and Polaroid Stories for UC Berkeley, 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 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, a one-woman short, 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 is a founding member of Campo Santo, a multicultural Theater Company in San Francisco *Theater Bay Area, best actress recipient
JAN HUNTER, Assistant Director
JAN HUNTER is an Actress, Director and retired Theatre Educator of 40 years, she was the Performing Arts Director at Skyline High school for 24 years , directing and Producing 4 productions a year. She recently starred in NTCT’s fall production of “Interlude” and African American Theatres productions of Cinderella 2018-2019, Streetcar Named Desire 2018 and For Colored Girls 2018, nominated for Outstanding Ensamble performance By Theatre Bay Area 2019. She’s performed in Oedipus, School for Scandal and Pygmalion, directed “ The Vagina Monologues” for BAWAR 2018.
Born and raised in Los Angeles , and one of the Original Soul Train Dancers, modeled for Johnson and Johnson Hair Care products. Jan is a Board of Directors member of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. Intimate Apparel is her first Directorial production for LHT. Hunter holds a B.A. in Drama, M.A. in Education and M.A. in Teacher of the Arts.
CAST
JACINTA KAUMBULU
Jacinta Kaumbulu is a Bay Area actor. She is thrilled to be making her first debut with The Lorraine Hansberry Theater at Magic Theater; in the role of Dr. Beatrice Free (Bea). Black Women’s health, and wellness is not talked about enough. Selfcare and love of self which are crucial to living a good life. Jacinta hopes to give life to Dr. Beatrice Free and to our community guide as black women in this marvelous play. Jacinta has worked with several theater companies in the Bay Area over the years. Most recently, 3 Girls Theater, Crowdedfire, Playground SF, The Lower Bottom Playaz, Rhythmix Cultural Center, and The Valley Center for Performing Arts.
PAIGE MAYES*
Paige Mayes is a proud Aurora, Colorado native. She is elated to return to Lorraine Hansberry Theater after Single Black Female in 2019! Mayes works as a triple threat actress, choreographer, heel class instructor, model, recording artist & yoga teacher. In fall 2023, Paige was the assistant choreographer for CROWNS at Centre Rep Company. Mayes has worked with African American Shakespeare Company, Alliance Theater, A.C.T., Berkeley Rep, Marin Theater Company, Milwaukee Rep & more. She is an Arizona State University and American Conservatory Theater alum. Paige sends much love to her family, her husband and their late son. All glory to GOD! @iam_paigemayes
PHAEDRA TILLERY-BOUGHTON*
Phaedra Tillery Boughton (she/her) is a multi-hynaphte creative artist. Phaedra was awarded the 2022-23 Theatre Bay Area Arts Leadership residency award in Residency at SFBATCO. She continues to expand her artistic range as an Associate Producer/Casting Manager at SFBATCO, Co-Host of Creatively Shaded and a Teaching Artist for SFArtsEd. Her past theater productions include Sleeping Beauty as Mission Burrito/Queen Understudy (Presidio Theatre), Crowns as Mable (CenterRep), Clybourne Park (Director), AintMisbehavin’ as Armelia McQueen, The Color Purple (Hillbarn Theatre), Caroline or Change, Little Shop of Horrors (Ray Of Light Theatre), She consistently challenges the concept of traditional theatre and finds new ways to push the boundaries of creativity and inclusion in the theatre community.
ASIA JACKSON
Understudy for The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body.
CREATIVE TEAM
KENDRA BARNES
Kendra Kimbrough Barnes (she/her) is an Oakland native and Director of Contemporary & African Diasporic dance works. She is founder of K*STAR*PRODUCTIONS, the presenting organization for the Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble (KKDE), & co-presenter of the Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now. Barnes is a Lecturer of Dance at UC Berkeley and an Adjunct Professor at St. Mary’s College of CA’s LEAP Program. Her theater credits as choreographer include Cal Shakes, the African-American Shakespeare Company, Crowded Fire Theater, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and Center REP Theater. She was a 2023 teaching artist for The Guthrie Theater’s Guthrie Experience summer program for MFA students in Minneapolis, MN and is a 2024 Artist in Residence at Shawl Anderson Dance Center. Kendra is thrilled to be working with the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and grateful to the BFG Cast & Production Team! IG: @kreateinlove / www.kstarproductions.org
M.D. COMBS
M.D. Combs is a Bay Area native growing up in the south bay who found a love for lighting design while studying theater at San Francisco State University. They are fascinated by the way that light can establish worlds and transport audiences to a different place. After spending time working in New York City. M.D. Combs is elated to be back in the bay lighting up various bay area venues and productions.
ALEX FAKAYODE
Alexandria Fakayode is an artistic collaborator & theatrical sound designer from the Bay Area. Focusing in on sound design, Alex has worked/assisted with different theaters around the Bay, including: Shotgun Players, Berkeley Repertory Theater & Cutting Ball Theater. Her professional career started in July 2022, as the Shotgun Players’ Sound Fellow/Apprentice, and then designing a few projects in their Champagne Staged Reading Series. This year, her debut as a Bay Area Theatrical Sound Designer culminated with Shotgun Players’ Babes in Ho-lland in January 2024. She has a B.A. in Drama from the University of California, Irvine.
VANESSA HILL
Vanessa Hill is a Bay Area based Stage Manager and has joined Tomorrow Youth Rep as their Production Manager. She has had the pleasure to work with many companies in the Bay, frequently found at Shotgun Players, LHT, and Bread & Butter Theatre Company. She is forever grateful for all her friends and family who constantly support her throughout every endeavor she chooses and for everyone who continues to support the arts in our communities.
BRITTANY MELLERSON
Brittany Mellerson (Scenic & Prop Design) is delighted to be designing for the first time with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. With a BFA in Theatrical Lighting and Sound Design from Point Park University's Conservatory Program, Brittany is a multi hyphenate designer/director with a focus in sharing black stories and cathartic experiences. Some of their most noticeable professional credits include current residencies with PlayGround SF and Lamplighters Music Theatre for Lighting Design and Production Management, while also utilizing an extensive concentration in Sound Design and Intimacy Coordination as a freelance professional and consultant. When they are not bringing scripts to life on stage, Brittany is steadily curating their own visions, acting as the Director and Visual Designer/Consultant of published content, archival footage, and live performances for their own entertainment collective.
JASMINE MILAN WILLIAMS
Jasmine Milan Williams is a Multidisciplinary Artist who uses art as a vessel for change, collaborating with BIPOC artists and organizations to tell bold stories and shine a light on Black and Queer Liberations. She is so excited to be styling these beautiful, intelligent, hilarious, and in-depth characters in Lisa B. Thompson's masterpiece; and collaborating with some of her favorite artists. You can also see her costume styling in Choir Boy at Shotgun Players "Nobody's free until everybody's free."- Fannie Lou Hammer
AMISSA MILLER
Amissa Miller (Dramaturg) is a dramaturg, writer, and educator. Her work as a new play dramaturg includes developmental workshops and productions at Crowded Fire Theater, 3Girls Theatre, The Huntington Theatre Company, and Ars Nova. Her writing includes the short screenplay The Big Chop (2014 Black Star Film Festival), and short plays Breaths (Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco’s Best Plays of 2019 Showcase) and Her Own Things (published in the Fall 2019 issue of African Voices Magazine). Amissa has worked as a teaching artist in various youth and community spaces, with organizations including Opening Act New York, Wide Angle Youth Media, and ArtsEmerson. She has also taught courses in Performing Arts and Ethnic Studies at Emerson College, The University of Texas at Austin, and Saint Mary's College of California. Amissa holds a BA in Drama from Spelman College and an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia University.
TAJIANNA OKECHUKWU
Tajianna is an actor, filmmaker, and stage manager based in the Bay Area. She obtained a double degree, a BFA in Theatre Arts and a BA in Film & TV Studies, from Azusa Pacific University. After graduating, she has worked on local films as a Production Assistant & Coordinator for different well-renowned studios and platforms such as Amazon Studios, Marvel, A24, and PBS. Her 1st award-winning Co-Director & Producer short film credit for Cracks in the Foundation won an Official Selection in the SF Indie Film Festival, an official selection in the UCLAxFilm Festival, and more.The film explores healing generational trauma through the lens of a young Black woman starting from childhood. In her creative work, she likes to explore narratives through the lens of the Black experience with an Afro-surrealist approach. She always seeks to tell avant-garde stories that will shift paradigms and shake culture in our society. Tajianna’s credits as a Stage Manager include: EDIT ANNIE (Crowded Fire Theater), HALIE! The Mahalia Jackson Musical (Lorraine Hansberry Theatre), and CROWNS (Contra Costa Civic Theatre). Tajianna’s credits as an actor include: Lady in Brown in For Colored Girls, Spark in SHINING (SFBATCO’s New Works Theatre Festival), Tanya in HER, Messenger/Apothecary in Romeo & Juliet (African American Shakespeare Company), and Taryn (u/s) in BABES IN HO-LLAND (Shotgun Players). She is honored to be the Video Designer for this production! Tajianna wants to thank the cast and crew for inspiring her and her loved ones for supporting her dreams. Exodus 35:31-33.