Will Power (performer)


Will Power is an American actor, rapper, playwright, and educator.

Career

Power has been a featured performer on Last Call with Carson Daly and Russell Simmons’s Def Poetry Jam on HBO. He also starred in the 1998 film Drylongso, a hit at Sundance, as well as being featured in the documentary All Fathers are Sons.
A pioneer in the genre of hip hop theatre, Power has created a unique fusion of original music, rhymed dialogue, and choreography. His adaptation of the Greek tragedy Seven against Thebes, entitled The Seven, had a successful Off-Broadway run at the New York Theatre Workshop.
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.
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.
His play Seize the King, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2018. It will be produced at the Alliance Theatre in 2020.
Power is the Duke Foundation Resident Artist at New York Theatre Workshop, and on the Faculty at Southern Methodist University'Meadows School of the Arts.
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 is also the lead vocalist of the Omar Sosa Sextet.
Power is the son of civil rights activists, Gigi Gregory and Chris Wylie, and the grandson of George Gregory, Jr.

Discography

With Midnight Voices- Albums: Dreams Keep Blowin' My Mind, Late Nite at the Upper Room, Howlin' at the Moon
As a member of the Omar Sosa Sextet-Free Roots, Spirit of the Roots, Bembón, Prietos.

Theatrical works

Written and performed:
As a writer, performer, composer with Will Hammond Flow, Will Power has been in preview performances in 2002, premiered in 2003. Power also toured through 2005, with one performance being at the Sydney Festival in 2007.
Performed:
Written: