 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(June 2023) |
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Will Power is an American playwright, rapper, actor, and educator.
| A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(June 2023) |
|
Will Power is an American playwright, rapper, actor, and educator.
A pioneer in the genre of hip hop theatre, Power helped to create an influential new form of theater that fuses original music, rhymed dialogue, and choreography. [1] His adaptation of the Greek tragedy Seven Against Thebes , entitled The Seven , had a successful Off-Broadway run at the New York Theatre Workshop. [2]
Power is also the author of many well received plays. In January 2010 McCarter Theatre Center premiered Fetch Clay, Make Man . The play focuses on the relationship between Muhammad Ali, the famous boxer, and Stepin Fetchit, an African-American actor, on the eve of Ali's 1965 defense of his heavyweight championship against Sonny Liston. [3]
In 2013, Power began a three-year term as the Playwright in Residence at Dallas Theater Center through the National Playwright Residency Program, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by HowlRound. In 2016, his residency grant was renewed for another three-year term. [4] [5]
His play Seize the King, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2018. It was produced at the Alliance Theatre in 2020, and with the Classical Theater of Harlem, where it received strong reviews including a Critics Pick from the New York Times. [6] Will Power's play "Detroit Red" about Malcolm X during his turbulent teenage years, played to full houses at ArtsEmerson in Boston, and received five Elliot Norton Award nominations, winning two for Outstanding New Script (Will Power) and Outstanding Actor, Large Theater (Eric Berryman). [7]
Power was a Doris Duke Foundation Resident Artist at New York Theatre Workshop, and on the Faculty at Southern Methodist University'Meadows School of the Arts. [8] Power is currently a professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
In addition to composing the music used in his shows, Power has also written lyrics and music heard on MTV, UPN's Moesha, and NBC's Kingpin. He was also the lead vocalist of the Omar Sosa Sextet from 1997-2000.
Power is the son of civil rights activists, Gigi Gregory and Chris Wylie, and the grandson of George Gregory, Jr.
With Midnight Voices- Albums: Dreams Keep Blowin' My Mind (1991), Late Nite at the Upper Room (1994), Howlin' at the Moon (1997)
As a member of the Omar Sosa Sextet-Free Roots (1997), Spirit of the Roots (1999), Bembón (2000), Prietos (2000).
Written and performed:
Performed:
Written:
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Fetch Clay, Make Man is a two-act play written by playwright Will Power. Set within the days leading up to one of the most anticipated fights between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston. Ali forms an unlikely friendship with Stepin Fetchit, a controversial, vaudevillian Hollywood star. Award-winning performer and playwright Will Power, created an intense yet comical script that explores the improbable bond that formed between two incredibly different and influential American cultural icons. During the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-1960s, a vibrant and fearless fighter, and an almost-forgotten figure, fight together to shape their public personas and establish their legacies.
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