Katori Hall

Katori Hall is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright hailing from Memphis, Tennessee. She is currently the showrunner and executive producer of the hit Starz drama, P-Valley, adapted from her play Pussy Valley. The critically acclaimed, record-breaking, and Emmy-nominated series has received countless honors, including the NAACP Image Award for Best Drama Series. Katori’s most recent work for the stage, The Hot Wing King, won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She also wrote and produced the smash Broadway musical, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, receiving two Tony Award nominations for her work as both playwright and producer. For the musical’s acclaimed West End production, she also received an Olivier nomination for ‘Best New Musical.’ Her play The Mountaintop, which vividly reimagines the final night of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, premiered at Theatre503 in London in 2009, then transferred to the West End, where she won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2010. In October 2011, an acclaimed production of the play opened on Broadway, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett. Katori's other work for the stage includes the award-winning Hurt Village, Hoodoo Love, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!!, Our Lady of Kibeho (its Olivier-nominated production named one of the best plays of the 21st century by The Guardian), Children of Killers, Purple is the Colour of Mourning and The Blood Quilt. She is a 2025 American Academy of Arts & Sciences inductee and the recipient of many awards, including the Columbia University Medal of Excellence, the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in Literature, Black Women Film Network StorytellHER Award, AUDELCO Award for Best Playwright, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York (PONY) Fellowship, two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, the Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement, the National Black Theatre's August Wilson Playwriting Award and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award.