Cheryl Foggo

• Name — Cheryl Foggo • Birthplace — Calgary, Alberta, Canada • Language — English • Born — 1956

Born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1956, she is descended from Black Oklahomans who settled in Maidstone, Saskatchewan, in 1910. She also had ancestors who lived in Amber Valley and Campsie, Alberta. Foggo's mother's was close friends with Violet King Henry, the first Black woman lawyer in Canada.

Her work focuses on Western Canadians of African descent. She is an advocate for writers and Black artists and is an active mentor and lecturer. Foggo served on the advisory board for Black on the Prairies, a multi-platform archive and resource on CBC initiated and curated by journalist Omayra Issa and radio host Ify Chiwetelu. She has also had multiple presentations of her multi-media creations: Ranchers, Rebels and the Righteous, Creole, Travelling On, Five Voices and Unlocking Sacred Codes. She has been profiled in Who's Who in Black Canada.

Foggo has written for Theatre Alberta, Reader's Digest Canada, Avenue, Alberta Views, Alberta Ventures, Calgary, Western Living, Sunday Magazine, Arts Bridge, Muse, Canadian Consumer, Calgary Herald, The Globe and Mail, and Legacy. Her work has been anthologized in multiple collections, including The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology, edited by Karina Vernon; Calgary Through the Eyes of Writers, edited by Shaun Hunter; Alberta Encore: People, Places, and Poetry from Legacy Magazine, edited by Barbara Dacks; One Step over the Line: Toward a History of Women in the North American Wests, edited by Elizabeth Jameson and Sheila McManus; Remembering Chinook Country; and Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West Through Women's History, edited by Sarah Carter, Lesley Erickson, Patricia Roome, and Char Smith.

Her play Turnaround, co-written with Clem Martini, was produced by Lunchbox Theatre Company in 1999. Heaven was first produced by Lunchbox Theatre Company in 2001, which revived it in 2022. It also aired on CBC Radio's Sunday Showcase and Monday Night Playhouse in 2004. In 2010, she created a stage adaptation of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which received workshops and staged readings during Theatre Calgary's Fuse Festival and Afrikadey. In August 2012, The Devil We Know, her play co-written with her husband Clem Martini, premiered at the Blyth Festival. She began work on the play John Ware Reimagined hoping to bring attention to the Black Albertan cowboy and rancher John Ware in time for the centennial of the Calgary Stampede in 2012. An early version of the play had its first public reading in 2012. In August 2014, the play premiered in Calgary, produced by Ellipsis Tree Collective Theatre Company. The script won the Writers Guild of Alberta 2015 Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama. John Ware Reimagined had its second production at Workshop West Theatre Company in 2017. Her play Heaven was produced at the Citadel Theatre in summer 2021. Her short play The Sender was commissioned as part of Obsidian Theatre's 21 Black Futures, distributed on CBC Gem in 2021.

• Years — Title — Role — Ref. • 1992 — Carol's Mirror — Screenwriter • 1997–1998 — North of 60 — Screenwriter • 2002 — The Journey of Lesra Martin — Screenwriter Director • 2019 — Kicking Up a Fuss: The Charles Daniels Story — Screenwriter Director • 2020 — John Ware Reclaimed — Screenwriter Director