Ekundayo Bandele began his career as a playwright with Talking About My Man and Down in Heaven’s Basement, which were followed by many other successful productions.
In 2006, Bandele founded Hattiloo Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee, with the mission to develop a Black theatre that is accessible to, relevant to, and reflective of a multicultural community. Each year he curates a season of seven plays, which have featured film and television stars such as Harry Lennix, Geoffrey Owens, and Debbi Morgan. In addition to his Hattiloo Theatre credits, Bandele has directed numerous plays, and assisted Tony Award-winning director Ruben Santiago-Hudson for the Willamstown Theatre Festival’s production of Paradise Blue. In 2019, he took a production of Ain’t Misbehavin’ to Spazio Teatro No'hma in Milan, Italy. In 2020, he returned to Milan with Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, and again in 2023 with Mahalia: Queen of Gospel.
Bandele raised $4.3 million which resulted in the construction of Hattiloo’s 14,000 square foot venue, and then he raised $5.5 million to establish an endowment. He negotiated with the city of Memphis a $1 per year, twenty-five-year lease for a closed public school that he converted into the Technical Theatre Center. In 2022, he launched the Hattiloo Black Theatre Studies Institute at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee.
Bandele is a graduate of Leadership Memphis’s executive program, and a graduate of the University of Maryland’s DeVos Institute of Arts Management Fellowship. He served as chairman of the city of Memphis’s Division of Office of Youth Services and as a founding board member of the Overton Park Conservancy. Bandele currently serves as a founding board member of the National Black Theatre Owners Association and the Chicago-based African American Museum of the Performing Arts. He and his wife of thirty years, Nicole, have two adult daughters named Hatshepsut (Hatti) and Oluremi (Loo), whose combined nicknames are the inspiration for the theatre’s name: Hattiloo.