Award-winning playwright Katori Hall on Starz’ “P-Valley”

Episode notes

(Photo: Andy Kropa / Getty Images)

Award-winning playwright Katori Hall on Starz’ “P-Valley”Katori Hall is an award-winning playwright. She’s written several plays, including Hurt Village, Our Lady of Kibeho, Children of Killers.

Her most acclaimed work, though, is The Mountaintop. It imagines Martin Luther King’s last night on earth at the Lorraine Motel. That play won the Laurence Olivier award for best new play in 2010.

These days, Katori Hall is the creator and showrunner of the new Starz show P-Valley. It’s based on a play of hers by the same name.

It’s set in a place called The Pynk – a strip club in the Mississippi Delta. The show focuses on the people who work in the club: the women on stage, the bouncers, the bartenders, and the boss: Uncle Clifford.

Guest host Tre’vell Anderson chats with Katori about the show and where it fits into the broad conversation of stripping and sex work. Plus, where she got the idea for the show and embracing the humanity of this often overlooked industry.

In this episode...

Jesse Thorn

Host

Kevin Ferguson

Senior Producer

Jesus Ambrosio

Producer

Richard Robey

Maximum Fun Producer

Daniel Huecias

Maximum Fun Production Fellow

Daniel Arón Speer

Video Editor

Guests

Katori Hall

About the show

Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney’s, which called it “the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world.” Since April 2013, the show has been distributed by NPR.

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