Deletta Gillespie is a multi-disciplinary teaching and performing artist, playwright, author, and singer/songwriter. Currently an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Morgan State University, Gillespie earned a BA in Liberal Arts from Goddard College, and an MFA in Theatre Arts at Towson University. She also studied Musical Theatre performance at Highline College in Seattle, electronic media at the University of Oklahoma, and Creative Writing with the Writers Bureau in the UK.  Gillespie has performed across the US and abroad, and her theatrical productions include; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Forever My Darling, Guys and Dolls, Livin’ Fat, The Hot Mikado, Quantum Janis, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum, Don’t Bother Me - I Can’t Cope, The Determination of Azimuth, Baltimore Observed, Guys and Dolls, and 7:32, an original musical and national runner up in the 2009 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Gillespie has also directed plays including Spunk, Brokeology, and Flat Sam. 

Gillespie is also a playwright, and has written plays including Encounters of the Discriminatory Kind, and What a Girl Wants. Her play U-Turn received an honorable mention in Seattle’s Stone Soup Theatre’s Double X Playwrights Festival. She has also written Rufus’ Rhythm and Blues Revue, and  The Magic City Massacre, a documentary play about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The play has enjoyed multiple productions, including a national presentation produced by the KoFestival of Performance during the Covid pandemic. Gillespie also penned a book - Panties Up, Dress Down: Things My Mama Used to Say, which was later adapted into a solo show that premiered in Baltimore’s Charm City Fringe Festival. Additionally, she has created and performs two cabaret shows: Good and Yummy, and Songs of Protest – Songs of Peace. 

Gillespie is an accomplished vocalist and has released a collection of songs on an album entitled Triumphant. Several songs received airplay around the world and landed on the Indie Music Network’s weekly countdown on several occasions. She has opened for artists including Daryl Davis, Patti Austin, the late Al Jarreau, and British music icons Paul Carrack and Judi Tzuke. She is also the voice of Bette the Elephant in the award winning animated film short The Elephant’s Song (Lynn Tomlinson), which has been shown in film festivals across the globe.

Gillespie’s tv and film credits include House of Cards, A Shock to the System, Cadillac Man, and Bermuda Grace. 

Gillespie was the director of the music ministry at The Spiritual Empowerment Center (CSL) in Baltimore for seven years, and has been the featured musician and speaker at the Centers for Spiritual Living in the DMV for a decade. She currently serves as the director of the music ministry at Unity of Gaithersburg. 

She is an assistant professor of Theatre Arts at Morgan State University, and is a member of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), and SAG/AFTRA, the Baltimore Blues Society, and the National Association of Black Storytellers.