Katori Hall, an award-winning playwright, has been named artistic director of the Hattiloo Theater, an African-American repertory theater in Memphis. Ms. Hall, a Memphis native, won an Olivier Award for her play “The Mountaintop,” which was set the night before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. It opened on Broadway in 2011, starring Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson.

Ms. Hall’s Memphis roots run deep and are often displayed in her work. Her 2012 follow-up to “The Mountaintop” was “Hurt Village,” set in a Memphis housing project. She is in the process of trying to turn that play into a movie.

One of her most recent works was “The Blood Quilt” (2015), which opened in Washington, about four distant African-American sisters who reconnect to create a quilt to pay tribute to their mother after her death. The Wall Street Journal called it a “richly crafted tale.”

Ms. Hall’s hiring will raise the Hattiloo’s profile, said Ekundayo Bandele, who founded the theater in 2006.

“Hattiloo is making a shift to be a main, if not the main player in black theater in the country,” Mr. Bandele told the Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal. He also called the addition of Ms. Hall a “dream come true.”