Margaret Laurena Kemp

Margaret Laurena Kemp is an actor, multidisciplinary performing artist, writer, teaching artist, and Professor of Theatre & Dance at University of California Davis. Her award-winning production of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (co-directed with Janni Younge) was presented at the 2022 Chicago International Puppet Festival. Her internationally recognized digital production of Seamus Heaney’s Antigone (2021) (under the title Antigone/NOW) captured a global audience with worldwide screenings at venues such as Cairo International Experimental Theatre Festival, The Sound Festival (UK) and Wirtz Center (Chicago). Her films have been screened at Museum of Contemporary Art /MECA (Portland, Maine), The New School (New York City), Woman Made Gallery (Chicago) (2021), The Elaine Jacobs Gallery (Detroit, Michigan) (2019), Montalvo Arts Center (2016). Recent directing credits include Blood at the Root (2022), The Bluest Eye (2022), CLICK (2021), Detroit 67 (2021), and Antigone/NOW (2020). Her feature film credits as an actor include starring roles in Ten-Cent Daisy (2021), Blood Bound (2020) and Children of God (2017). She has performed at Arena Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Yale Repertory, South Coast Repertory, La Mama Theatre (Melbourne, Australia), Theatre of Changes (Athens, Greece), Red Pear Theatre (Antibes, France), and The Magnet Theatre (Cape Town, South Africa).

Projects:

• Claiming Space