Brandon Michael Hall’s Remarkable Range
Brandon Michael Hall is a unicorn. He is the only Black actor to lead two prime-time network television shows back-to-back. When he landed his first starring role as rapper Courtney Rose in ABC’s 2017 sitcom The Mayor, he was a 24-year-old South Carolina native and newly minted Juilliard graduate. Despite rave reviews and a place on Variety’s “Top Ten Television Stars to Watch” list, The Mayor was canceled after one season. Hall rebounded with another starring role, playing podcast host Miles Finer in the 2018 CBS comedy-drama God Friended Me. During both shows, he also had a recurring role in the TBS series Search Party.
In The Mayor and God Friended Me, Hall portrayed charismatic, smart young Black men with empathy and integrity. Produced by Jamie Tarses, former president of ABC, and Hamilton Tony winner Daveed Diggs, The Mayor starred Hall as a rapper who lives with his mother, played by Yvette Nicole Brown. He runs for mayor of a small California town as a joke to promote his mixtape—and wins.
“What The Mayor’s Courtney Rose taught me was passion. If you’re doing this because of your family, your friends, and the things that keep you grounded, then everything else falls into place,” Hall told The Positive Community. “That’s where Courtney was coming from. He is a Black kid that became the mayor. All he wanted to do was drop a mixtape. Because he was willing to say, ‘I don’t know, can someone help me?’ his mom got involved. His friends got involved. That’s how he was able to become a better artist, as well as a better politician.”
For two years on God Friended Me, Hall played Miles Finer, the son of an influential Harlem pastor, played by Joe Morton. Miles becomes an atheist after his mother’s death, then starts receiving online messages from a mysterious account named “God.”
“The hardest thing for me to relate to Miles Finer was to give up the idea that God exists. It was the most terrifying experience. I thought all of my blessings were gonna stop, but it actually gave me a closer walk with who I consider to be my heavenly and worldly parent,” Hall said. “I grew up in the church. My mother’s a preacher. I grew up in the Bible Belt. I went to revival church on Sunday and Wednesday. Bible study was Tuesday. Saturday was choir rehearsal, and then I had to go to Bible school. I also went to Bible college for a time.”
Hall began performing as a teen, rapping his poetry with his cousins. At the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, he became determined to attend Juilliard, following Governor’s School graduates Danielle Brooks and Teyonah Parris.
“I knew the benefits that Juilliard was going to offer me. I wanted the training. I wanted to be with these top-notch teachers. I wanted that name on my resume. I wanted the networking opportunity,” he said. His classmates included Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Grammy-winning producer Jahaan Sweet. Wynton Marsalis and Jon Batiste were among his mentors.
In recent years, Hall has appeared in works by legendary Black playwrights. In 2021, he joined the historic Broadway production of Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind. He later co-starred in Suzan-Lori Parks’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog at Pasadena Playhouse, a production that earned the NAACP Theatre Award for Best Ensemble. Now, he is playing Boy Willie in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson at Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey.
“I did everything in my life to lead me to take on one of the biggest roles that I’ve had to take on in my entire career. If I didn’t do God Friended Me and learn what that camaraderie was like, I wouldn’t have been able to do The Piano Lesson and the weight of having the name August Wilson,” Hall said. “The people who I’m getting to work with on The Piano Lesson, I watched these people when I was in college. For me, it’s the opportunity of the people I get to meet, the networking opportunities that come with it, and the ridiculous amount of hard work that I get to take myself through.”
The Piano Lesson runs September 12–October 4 at Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. Tickets are available.
