Netta Walker
Netta Walker is an actor, playwright, screenwriter, poet, producer and activist that began her career onstage in Chicago in 2015 as an understudy, going on for Rose of Sharon at The Gift Theater for “The Grapes of Wrath”. Now she is known for starring as Keisha McCalla in "All American: Homecoming" and “All American” on The CW for 3 seasons. In 2019, she won a Jeff Award for “Best Supporting Performance in a Play” (“Yen”, Raven Theater) and was quickly named one of the Chicago Tribune’s "Hot New Faces" by theater critic Chris Jones. After studying Musical Theater Voice at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, she dropped out and focused solely on acting in plays in the city.
Her turn to writing led her to study playwriting at The LIR at Trinity College for a year while simultaneously taking acting classes at RADA - all in the off time of shooting Homecoming in Los Angeles. In 2026 she was asked to join a playwriting cohort at Tony Award winning Goodman Theater under their New Stages Festival collaboration with the Dramatist Exchange. She was also selected for the Pearl Cleage writers workshop with the Goodman Theater and Remy Bumppo Theater Company in 2024, where she began developing her poetry book Jade. Shortly after, her play Hayward was chosen as a Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist in 2025, which was then published under 1319 Press - it is set for production in the fall of 2026 with Steppenwolf Theatre and The Gift Theatre; where she recently became an ensemble member. Her play keerah (about the overlap of African American and traditional Irish culture and literature) was selected as a winner in Definition Theaters’ 2024 AMPLIFY New Play Festival, and will be fully produced in the spring of 2026. keerah has also been performed in scratch nights in London with Irish speaking casts -- by both Mirror Up Productions and Bespoke Plays. It was also selected by Edinburgh FFI for Scriptwriting. It is also set to be published by 1319 Press in the spring of 2026. Her new play Nordica inspired by George S. Schuylers Harlem Renaissance novel Black No More has been performed in London at the Union Theater and the Greenwich Theatre with Union Shorts and That’s What’s Wild Productions. It is currently in development with First Floor Theater as the 2026 Blueprint Commision recipient. Her Filipino short film Balik won the Horror/Thriller short script category at Hollywood Just4Shorts Film and Screenplay competition, as well as being selected for London Film Festival International and Edinburgh FFI. This was swiftly followed by her short script Baby Gay being selected for the Chicago Script Awards and as a Cambridge Script Festival finalist (LGBTQ Screenplay). Both shorts were selected for the Best Script Awards screenplay competition in London in the same year. Walker was also chosen to pitch her original feminist dystopian series House of Dixie at the American Cinemtheque’s Proof of Concept Film Festival in LA in 2024 - it then went on to be selected as a Quarterfinalist for WeScreenplays’ Diverse Voices Lab Spring 2025. She is now adapting it for stage under the title The Turning with actress Jena Malone helming the project.
Chicago onstage acting credits include: Taming of The Shrew (Court Theater), Lion in Winter (Court Theater), How to Defend Yourself (Victory Gardens, original cast); Yen (Raven Theatre, Jeff Award for Best Supporting Actor); Hamlet, Grapes of Wrath (The Gift); No Child (Definition Theatre); Continuity (Goodman); truth and reconciliation (Sideshow Theatre Company); Great Expectations (Silk Road Rising/Remy Bumppo); The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley (Northlight, original cast) and in workshops and reading series with companies like Steppenwolf Theater, Jackalope Theater, and Pride Films and Plays. Regional: Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Milwaukee Rep).
Born and raised on the Florida/Georgia line in the Westside of Jacksonville, Florida, her unique background as a child of an immigrant and a Navy Chief influences every decision of storytelling she makes. The blended cultures of Cebuano Filipina and traditional Southern African-American heritage — fuels her passion for creating multicultural, multilayered and nuanced representation of the human condition in the arts. She's an avid Shakespeare and classical language lover and focuses on storytelling through cultural mythology and folklore. Drawing from her distinct experiences as the youngest of four children (all older brothers) in a mixed-race family in the south, she weaves stories of family, culture, love and courage into all of her work - and as of late, particularly her writing.