About the Author

Netta Walker is an actor, playwright, screenwriter, poet, producer and activist that began her career onstage in Chicago 10 years ago as the Rose of Sharon understudy 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 lotted 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. As a writer in the Pearl Cleage writers workshop with the Tony Award winning Goodman Theater and Remy Bumppo Theater Company, she began developing her poetry book Jade. Shortly after, Hayward was chosen as a Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference 2025 Semifinalist. Her play keerah (about the overlap of African American and traditional Irish culture and literature) was selected as a winner in Definition Theater's 2024 AMPLIFY New Play Festival, where it is set to be workshopped for two years. 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. 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.

Chicago onstage acting credits include: 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 story telling 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.

Walker is a passionate activist, leveraging her platform and writing to champion causes ranging from social justice to diversification to mental health in POC, and the pressing issue of climate change. The day after she won her Jeff Award in 2019 she used her platform of celebration to call out the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at Roosevelt University — leading to hundreds of students sharing their personal stories of abuse and upending the institution as it was completely. She hopes to forever showcase that veracity in her art — all of which she attributes to the incredible strength and courage she witness in her parents, Antonio and Aurora Walker.

Walker currently splits her time between her residence in Chicago, London and Los Angeles.

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