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[0:06] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's Theater Podcast, bringing you backstage and behind the scenes with the artists, producers, and industry leaders keeping theater alive and bringing plays to your screen during the pandemic.

[0:18] Gordon Cox: I'm your host, Gordon Cox.

[0:20] Gordon Cox: On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to Kemp Powers.

[0:23] Gordon Cox: He's a writer who's having a Hollywood moment right now with not one but two notable films this winter.

[0:28] Gordon Cox: The Pixar movie Soul, now on Disney Plus, and the drama One Night in Miami, coming to Amazon Prime January 15th.

[0:28] Gordon Cox: One Night in Miami began life as a play, which premiered in LA in 2013 and had a well-received run in London before it became the Oscar and Emmy winning actor Regina King's directorial debut with a cast that includes Tony Winner, Leslie Odom Jr.

[0:51] Gordon Cox: Powers is in the virtual studio with me to tell us about the real life story that inspired the play, how he reimagined his own work to shift it from the stage to the screen, and what it means to him to have the project he's been working on for years come out right now.

[1:05] Gordon Cox: Hey Kemp, thanks for joining me.

[1:07] Kemp Powers: Oh my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Gordon.

[1:09] Gordon Cox: Before we talk about One Night in Miami, the film, let's talk a little bit about One Night in Miami the play. Um, first of all, how did you discover the story of this one night?

[1:19] Kemp Powers: It's seems like such an unlikely it's so it seems so unlikely that all these people who are as prominent as they were were all all knew each other and all hung out at this very important moment in their time. It seems like you made it up, but I know.

[1:33] Kemp Powers: It's it's funny because I guess unlikely, but then when you really think about it, it seems more likely than not. I mean, one of the things we love reading about things like the Harlem Renaissance and the intersection between black politics, creativity, sports, entertainment, all those things. And you know, part of the reason why is segregation. You know, like up until fairly recent time in our history, regardless of what you do in your life, if you're black, you're still in the same communities. And it actually was way more common for folks to interact in these ways, especially if you shared a certain politics. If you, if you know, if you were of a similar stature.

[2:11] Kemp Powers: Um, what was interesting to me about these four, because again, it was a very real night. I discovered it when I was reading, it was a book by the late Mike Marcusi called on Redemption Song, Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the 60s. It was about the intersection between the civil rights movement and sports. And there was just one paragraph that said on February 25th, 1964, Cassius Clay, soon to be Muhammad Ali, defeated Sonny Liston in Miami, Florida, which was segregated at the time still. Right. Um, but no one thought he was gonna win, so there was no party planned. So he retreated to the black section of town where he stayed at the Hampton House Mo Hotel with his friends. Quiet night of conversation in the next morning is when he announced to the world he was the nation of Islam. Those friends just happened to be Malcolm X, Sam Cook, and Jim Brown.

[2:58] Kemp Powers: So I read that and was like, wait, hold up. Like everyone knows about the Malcolm X uh Muhammad Ali relationship, but in particular, the Sam Cook of it had me going, like, wow, this is so fascinating. I want to learn more. Because if you would ask me on the day that I read that paragraph, if you had asked me who were the four most impactful icons, heroes of mine uh in history, I would have probably said those four men.

[3:24] Kemp Powers: So it finding out about that really kind of sparked something in me. I was still a journalist at the time, so I set about researching how their friendship came about and how they interacted with one another with every intention on writing a book about that friendship. So that was actually my initial motivation, not even to write a play.

[3:44] Gordon Cox: Yeah, and so when did it become a play then and for you?

[3:47] Kemp Powers: Well, when my journalism career ended, that'll that'll do it. The journalism career ended, and the book wasn't, I didn't get around to writing the book. So I had a few years worth of research sitting in boxes that I was like, oh, I'll do something with that later, you know, just never got around to writing the book.

[4:01] Gordon Cox: Yeah, and how long ago was this, just for context.

[4:05] Kemp Powers: Um I read the book about 10 years ago, sure.

[4:08] Kemp Powers: Yeah, that sounds about right, like 10 or 11 years ago. I forgot what year the Mike Marcuse's book was was first published, but it was about 10 or 11 years ago in my to my recollection.

[4:18] Kemp Powers: And um, you know, um, as fate would have it, my journalism career was kind of wrapping up right when my playwriting, my nascent playwriting career was picking up.

[4:28] Kemp Powers: Um, I was writing a lot of short plays, 24-hour plays here in Los Angeles. The irony of being a New Yorker who doesn't get into playwriting until he gets to Los Angeles is not lost on me, by the way.

[4:39] Kemp Powers: Um trust me, my my my theater agent from the day he met me, he was like, Wow, that's really weird that you're like anyway. That's a whole other conversation.

[4:49] Kemp Powers: So um, and then thinking about subjects for full-length plays, I kind of went back to that research. It's like, oh, you know, I never finished writing, I never wrote the book. Part of it was because I was able to figure out how they became friends over these, those those kind of crucible several years from roughly 1962, 63 to 1965.

[5:10] Kemp Powers: But there were just lots of gaping holes, including like, well, what did they really talk about in the room? And you know, there were little tidbits like they ate some vanilla ice cream, little sphactoids here or there, but there wasn't much. And I was like, you know, this is actually considering the reality of all the things each of those men endured in the year leading up to that night, and what would happen in just the days, weeks, and months after that night.

[5:35] Kemp Powers: It felt like crucible was the word. It was like it felt like that night had the potential as stage drama to be a night of transformation for all four of them.

[5:45] Kemp Powers: And in terms of the ag what kind of transformation, history itself laid out what it was because that's reality. Jim Brown did retire from the NFL from the set of his very next movie. Malcolm X and Sam Cook were both killed less than a year from that night. Sam Cook did perform a change is gonna come on the tonight show one and only time, and then died before he saw the impact of his song. Malcolm was killed before the autobiography of Malcolm X was actually published. And Cassius did change his name to Muhammad Ali, did announce that he was a Muslim. I mean, all the that's like the reality of it, and it was just uh I think too much of a perfect coincidence for me not to explore that.

[6:26] Gordon Cox: Yeah, was it your first full-length play?

[6:29] Kemp Powers: Yes, and you were writing short plays.

[6:30] Kemp Powers: Yeah, that was my first full-length play, and that premiered at a group in LA with uh called Rogue Machine Theater, right?

[6:37] Kemp Powers: Yes, correct.

[6:38] Gordon Cox: Um, and how big was that production?

[6:40] Kemp Powers: That there's a 99 seat theater.

[6:43] Gordon Cox: Okay, yeah so 99 99 seats, yeah.

[6:45] Kemp Powers: Very, very small, yeah.

[6:47] Kemp Powers: And it seemed to attract attention pretty quickly, at least it got some good notices.

[6:51] Kemp Powers: It really quicker than I expected. I was really pleasantly surprised. I mean, stunned actually by just the the reaction the play had locally here in Los Angeles.

[7:02] Gordon Cox: Well, well, I get that LA is not a big scene as a big theater town. There's actually there actually is a lot of activity on a theater scene, right?

[7:10] Kemp Powers: Particularly in the equity waiver space, uh, of which you know, this first production was. There's hundreds of these, you know, 99 seat theaters scattered all over town. And they even have their own, you know, we have our own little like award shows that we do and everything for it.

[7:23] Kemp Powers: So it was really, really incredibly well received. Honestly, I remember um like a week after opening going like this is the dream. Like I could, I said I could die now happy. This play, this idea of mine that I was so excited about. I actually executed that idea. It's in front of an audience. The audience is enjoying it. I'm like, my work here is done. So, you know, I was really, yeah, it was really a great moment for me.

[7:50] Gordon Cox: And but of course, you continued to work on the play for several years thereafter as it became uh yes, indeed. It was it played in London, uh maybe three years after um after I premiered in in LA, it looks like 2016, it seems like at the Donmark.

[8:03] Kemp Powers: Yes, the Dunmar warehouse.

[8:05] Gordon Cox: Yeah, and how how did that come up?

[8:08] Kemp Powers: Well, I guess the main question is what did you learn watching UK audiences and theater artists respond to these people who were these Americans who are such sort of prominent figures in American history versus the way people reacted, you know, at your audiences in LA?

[8:25] Kemp Powers: There was a different reaction, but it was no less enthusiastic. If anything, I was pleasantly surprised that it was equally enthusiastic. Um, the director of the play in London, Kwame Kwe Arma, he had actually directed a previous production of it at Baltimore Center Stage, where he was the artistic director.

[8:42] Kemp Powers: So Baltimore was great. I mean, it was, you know, it's the state theater of Maryland. It drew in huge audiences, I've like sell-out audiences, and a lot of black people came into the theater and droves, and they were they were incredibly enthusiastic about the play.

[8:56] Kemp Powers: I was actually concerned on going to London that that enthusiasm wouldn't be anywhere near the same. I've been told about how muted audience responses can be to plays in general.

[9:07] Kemp Powers: Um but our first preview, we got a standing ovation. And I remember the folks at the Dunmar saying this never happens. I was like, Well, great. I'm happy it's happening now because I think the play really kind of calls for people to have some kind of reaction. It's meant to, you know, generate an emotional response and get you to kind of get up out of your seat, uh, so to speak.

[9:27] Kemp Powers: So I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction, especially considering it is such an American story, but I also think the Brits um are really in tune to American culture. In some cases, I think the Brits are more in tune to our culture than we are. You know, I mean, think about it. The whole the whole British rock invasion largely, you know, came from bands who are fans of blues music that white kids right here in America didn't want to listen to, but it really impacted kids in England.

[9:56] Kemp Powers: So I think that you know, they don't have the history we have, so they allow that they allow our culture to wash over them in a very kind of earnest, honest way.

[10:05] Gordon Cox: And was there a New York production of the show?

[10:08] Kemp Powers: Nope.

[10:08] Gordon Cox: Yeah, I did was there one on the table? Was that just not a thing that ever came together as a never came together?

[10:15] Kemp Powers: Um I I don't know. I I you you know as well as I do. It's it's so bizarre that um for all the enthusiasm uh for the work in in other cities and other parts of the world, um New York, nothing.

[10:29] Gordon Cox: Yeah, I have to admit, I didn't actually know I had heard of One Night in Miami, the film and its reception uh at the film festivals and all that, but I didn't know it was a play until someone pointed it out to me because I'm, you know, we in New York can be so sort of New York centric that uh yeah, I I mean look, I'm I'm from there and and I'll admit fully that like no one invited me to the party, so to speak.

[10:49] Kemp Powers: Um and there very much is a bit of a club vibe.

[10:52] Gordon Cox: Yeah um and and I and I'm and I feel totally I don't feel like I'm being a jerk by saying it. Like I said, I I was I'm I'm a towny, like I was a city kid. I was one of those kids around the neighborhood in Brooklyn. I didn't go to a theater program. Like we're not supposed to have a voice at the end of the day.

[11:08] Kemp Powers: Or if we do have a voice, it's supposed to be as a tertiary character written by someone who went to a certain program.

[11:14] Kemp Powers: And again, pro go into your go to all the programs you want. But I I treat the wonderful thing about Los Angeles, I say this as a New Yorker, is the egalitarian nature of the arts here.

[11:26] Kemp Powers: Anyone can do it, and if if it connects with an audience, it connects with an audience, and it's a lot less clubby.

[11:32] Kemp Powers: Um and I said it because again, it's not like people are doing theater in LA for the money.

[11:37] Gordon Cox: Right, right.

[11:38] Kemp Powers: Yeah. I know I know I sure wasn't.

[11:40] Kemp Powers: Yeah. Um and I and I also wasn't doing it to get the attention of Hollywood. I was just doing it because I grew up on theater.

[11:46] Kemp Powers: I grew up going to the Pap Theater. I my first trip out of the country was to London specifically to see the Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare.

[11:54] Kemp Powers: Oh wow, you know, company. So, you know, like theater has uh has had a profound impact on my life. Um and it changed who I am as a human being. Um, it's made me open up to the world. And but at the same time, theater practitioners are a club that I've never been invited to be a part of.

[12:14] Gordon Cox: Hmm.

[12:14] Kemp Powers: Yeah. Well, that's hopefully what we're all sort of trying to change right now as we uh as we think about bringing theater back online. When did the movie conversation start? When did the idea of turning that into a movie begin?

[12:29] Kemp Powers: The idea, I mean, it's the conversation really started um honestly in that first LA production. I'm in Los Angeles. So if you have anything that did get any attention by the end of the second or third week, you have producers and agents coming to see it as well. And um, producers came up to me, and um, it was actually the producers who ended up being the producers of the film. Um, Jess Um Calder and Keith Calder, and they basically said, like, we love the play. Um, we would do you have any interest in adapting it into a film, to which I was like, absolutely not. Like, never gonna happen.

[13:02] Gordon Cox: Right.

[13:03] Kemp Powers: I I um I wrote it as a play. Yeah. Um, I I first I first, I mean, that's not the full truth of it is it's two parts. One, I I wrote it to be a play for young people. It was I wrote it to be as simple as possible. You could you could stage it with four folding chairs in a high school gymnasium. Right. Like I really wanted something that spoke to my 17, 18, 19 year old self. Um, two, I'd already had a taste of Hollywood years earlier, and it wasn't a good taste. So I I'd seen the negative version of it, how you could have your ideas twisted and contorted. And I didn't want to I didn't want to subject this piece of work that meant so much to me to that process.

[13:48] Kemp Powers: So I for those reasons, I was like, let it live as a play, let it be a play. In fact, you know, at the time I was really just focused on continuing to develop my playwriting career and writing more plays. It wasn't about writing material that could be source material for movies or TV shows. Right. So, you know, it just came from this, that was just what I believed at the time. And end of the time, I did genuinely believe that the play could have a real life out there in the world and be the type of thing that was produced. And for all the the successes of the play, I mean, there were there were twice as many places that didn't want to produce it for any of the number of the again, it never went to New York.

[14:28] Gordon Cox: Right.

[14:29] Kemp Powers: You know, and when read there's all these things that just all the walls that hit you, and and the great irony that it took years before, in order for me to actually tell this story and have the opportunity to get the story I wrote out there to people, I then had to turn around to Hollywood, which was more egalitarian than theater.

[14:49] Gordon Cox: Right.

[14:49] Kemp Powers: Yeah. You know, that it's just again, it's uh, and I say none of this with bitterness. I say it more to illuminate the fact that none of our businesses are anywhere near as inclusive as we make them out to be.

[15:03] Gordon Cox: Right.

[15:04] Kemp Powers: Yeah. You know what I mean? Like the person who's being victimized or made to feel invisible on Monday, on Tuesday, they're making someone else feel invisible.

[15:12] Gordon Cox: Right.

[15:13] Kemp Powers: You know, there we we all do it. That I'm willing to more than admit that I was a you know, me at 12 years old, I was a little shit. You know, I was not a good, but we all were. And it's like we got to give each other opportunities to collaborate and and like be allies to one another. It can't just be a a club for any for any one group.

[15:34] Kemp Powers: So after several years and the play kind of running its course, I think after London, we had such a great production in London. We got nominated for the Olivier Award. Um, and then we didn't transfer to the West End.

[15:44] Kemp Powers: Um, and it was like, when you don't transfer to the West End, yet again, what is what does that say to New York? You see what I mean? What does that say to the New York theater community and your potential to be produced in New York? Dead on arrival.

[16:00] Kemp Powers: So again, all these strange political things I had to get educated on just kept on being stumbling blocks. And I kind of got exhausted and combined and and also I had started developing my screenwriting career. I was now back in Hollywood, but this time I was back in Hollywood way more on my terms.

[16:18] Kemp Powers: I was writing TV and film projects that you know I was really passionate about. Um, and and my skill set was getting better because every time as many playwrights there are writing film and TV, understand that it's not a one, it's it's apples and oranges.

[16:32] Kemp Powers: I I believe you when you change, John, when you move into live action, you have to kind of take a step back and learn your craft. And I had to do a lot of craft learning over the years. And so by the time my skill set got good enough that I felt like, oh, I think I could actually adapt my own play into a film. Whereas at the first, at the time that Keith and Jess first came to me, I would have just been optioning the play, and someone else would have written it.

[16:57] Kemp Powers: And I and again, I know where they would have probably gone with the story. I I felt a lot better knowing that I'd at least have a first shot at at translating the play into film.

[17:09] Gordon Cox: I'll have more with Kemp right after the break.

[17:21] Kemp Powers: And so tell us about that work that you because as you say, the play you can just do with you know, four chairs and an auditorium. Like it is uh it is very tightly focused in the way that so many plays are.

[17:32] Kemp Powers: It's very it's very theatrical in that sense, um, in terms of like kind of the way it lives on the stage. How did you think about then taking it uh to the to the screen in terms of opening it up and shifting, making it more dynamic?

[17:46] Kemp Powers: I don't know, like what how did you think about what you were um well? I mean, first opening it up was a keyword. I really, really wanted to, and in the play, the way the just for those who don't know, the way the play is structured, it begins when the four guys enter the room. It's real time for 85 minutes and it ends when they leave.

[18:04] Kemp Powers: Right. So there's no time jumps, there's no nothing. It's just 85 minutes of guys in a room. So that leaves a lot of their backstory to be, you know, as a question mark. I didn't mind doing that with the play because again, from the very first readings of the play, I saw that young people pull out their phones and Google things when they're interested.

[18:22] Kemp Powers: Yeah, so it's like anything they didn't know about these guys, they would know by the time they hit the lobby, which was also part of the fun of staging the play, is watching people develop this interest. For the film, um, it was a wonderful opportunity to actually, like I said, show the greater world and the crucible year that each of those men was having up to that point, as well as the end result of that transformation.

[18:46] Kemp Powers: One of the biggest decisions, though, that I had to make, and and it was a very tough decision, was whether I wanted to or how much to open it up, because I think one of the things that makes the story special, and I say the story, not meaning a play nor film, just the story itself, is that at its heart, the I want I believe the audience it should feel like they're getting to listen in on a conversation they have no business being privy to.

[19:13] Kemp Powers: I think that's what really makes it special. And I didn't want to lose that for the film. So I still wanted to ultimately have, you know, probably a good half of the movie still take place in a pretty confined space while also opening up the story.

[19:30] Kemp Powers: Of course, it doesn't all take place in the room. There's a few locations we go to throughout the hotel, but it's still a very confined space. But that being said, I don't even think you get to a single line paraphrase from the play until about 45 minutes into the movie.

[19:46] Kemp Powers: Oh wow.

[19:47] Kemp Powers: So I kind of started over from scratch, but then I found myself still wanting to get to this vigorous debate, this vigorous conversation. It's still meant to be a conversational um piece, but I've there's so many wonderful conversational films that I've seen, you know, like 12 Angry Men or you know, uh a few good men, or you know, you know what I mean, or the king's speech.

[20:12] Kemp Powers: There's so many that that I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I I think that you know, you don't see as many conversational pieces like that with black characters, but that's also part of the fun is having an Ali movie that's not about boxing, having a Sam Cook film that's not just about singing and all the performances, you know, having a Jim Brown movie where you never see him hold a football.

[20:35] Kemp Powers: Like I that's that's part of what because it's not about what they do, it's about who they are, it's about their humanity, and that's the one thing I wanted both of them to have in common. But they're actually totally different animals, and and writing the film was a very different experience.

[20:50] Gordon Cox: Did it how does it influence how did the shift from inform influence kind of the effect of it for you?

[20:58] Kemp Powers: What did characters shift their perspectives at all or their voices or you know, characters characters change? I mean, look, the the most popular moments in the play aren't even in the film.

[21:09] Kemp Powers: Like I didn't even recreate them. But probably the most popular moment in the stage play for every audience is this recreation in the room of Sam Cook's performance at the Harlem Square Club in Miami.

[21:20] Kemp Powers: And in the play, it's really a showstopping moment. He breaks the fourth wall, there's a follow spot on him. He's working through the audience. Not even in the film.

[21:29] Kemp Powers: Don't even reference it. Because I was telling a different story, honestly, in the movie. And in the play, it's quite a bit different.

[21:43] Kemp Powers: And the in the play, I almost joke, I jokingly call the play almost like a Trojan horse. And that the first half of the play, you really do kind of feel like it's about Cassius Clay. And it's about his decision. And he is much more the focus in the stage play than in the film.

[22:01] Kemp Powers: The film, it is very much Malcolm in Malcolm's dilemma that is the central through point of this entire story. So that was a big decision.

[22:31] Kemp Powers: So I use them much more as guards because I also had the luxury of creating other characters to help kind of round out some of these ideas. So, you know, like I didn't I didn't have to have this one character represent all these different, you know, concepts or ideas.

[22:46] Kemp Powers: I was able to spread it amongst different characters. So it wasn't necessary to have the burden. Therefore, you know, it's it's uh the I had other cast members. I was able to, you know, at least touch a little bit on um their relationship with women when it came to Sam and his wife, um, which obviously, you know, his wife was really on the his marriage was really on the rocks back then.

[23:08] Kemp Powers: So yeah, there were there's there's so many differences that to me, in fact it was so funny because when Regina first called me when we first met, she was still filming the TV show Watchmen and she read the script and I think she had a really really positive reaction to it. But then she went out and grabbed the play as well.

[23:26] Kemp Powers: So she read the play. And when we got on the phone, the one of the first things she said was like she's like I really wanted to meet you because I can't believe that the same person wrote the play and the screenplay.

[23:36] Kemp Powers: That's how so it's not in my mind. Like it's really different. Right. You know, I pretty much challenged myself to treat my play, my own play as source material. As a screenwriter in Hollywood, you're often given a book, you're given an article and they go like what does this inspire.

[23:52] Kemp Powers: So I wanted to treat my own play as nothing more than source material and ultimately tell the story that I wanted to tell in that moment and understand the story that I wanted to tell is going to be different in 2018 than it was in 2012.

[24:06] Gordon Cox: That was exactly my next question is how the story changed for you in terms of where we were in our lives when you were writing it and then how is the story landing with you differently now after the events of 2020?

[24:21] Kemp Powers: Yeah, I mean, well first none of us could have predicted 2020. This has been just like, oh, so that's what it must have been like when, you know, the plague happened, or there were smallpox, or like, you know, it's one of those years that you go, like, oh, this is one of those kids are going to read about it in textbooks and go, how did they do it? So none of us could have predicted 2020. That being said, one of the interesting and in a positive way things to come out of this very crucible year for all of us is that being unapologetically black is now normal. When I first wrote the play, part of what stymied it on stage was a concern that it would alienate white audiences. That was said to me, sometimes directly, sometimes paraphrased, but it was said to me so much.

And that if it doesn't appeal to our subscribers who are described as old white people, or if it makes them uncomfortable, and that there was a certain kind of black play they wanted to see. And I really that was just such a bummer. And I heard that a lot, I heard it a lot. And now what's in, so to speak, is that unapologetic blackness. My hope is that because it's in is that the artists creating that work aren't just creating it because it's now something that white audiences are into for the moment, because I don't want it to be a fad. So the interesting thing about this time is that people feel like it's something that I wrote for this moment, but that's never really been the case. When we did the first production of the play, I remember my original director in an interview saying that it felt like we were entering a new civil rights period, and the writer almost kind of gaffawed as though he was, it was like hyperbole, you know.

And during that original production, the Trayvon Martin verdict came through, and it was like really this devastating moment. And then the press said, wow, this play is so timely. The production happened in Baltimore, the Freddie Gray incident happened. And people were like, oh my God, this production is so timely. Done my every single production has been people have discussed how it's timely to that moment. And no one's connected that like I started writing the play as a time capsule. What's made it timely is that this shit keeps on happening. Right. Yeah. You know, and it's like it just keeps on how I look forward to the day when it is judged just as a time capsule and not as a reflection of the times we're going through.

I do think it's supposed to be a reflection of a conversation that black people have been having, but that conversation is a conversation we've been having since W.E.B. Du Bois versus Booker T. Washington, all the way up to today. And it's what if any social responsibility does the black artist have in American slash Western society. And my answer to that is it depends on the situation. You know, the central debate between a Malcolm X and a Sam Cook is the central debate inside happening. It's my internal monologue that's going on every time before I decide on taking a job or not taking a job. Because you will inevitably, if you are a person of color, a minority, or any underrepresented group, you're going to find yourself in situations where you are offered things that you feel might compromise who you are.

And on some days, I think you got to be Sam Cook about it, which is work within the system to bring about change. But on other days, you got to be a little Malcolm X about it and burn shit down and start over. And that's all it is. I'm just trying to reverse engineer this ongoing debate that we all have. That I think it's good that we have this debate, that we do feel a sense of responsibility, but I just reverse engineered it into the mouths of the men who I think inspire that line of thinking, at least for my generation, Generation X.

[28:22] Gordon Cox: Um, well, I will say that for the listeners who are listening to this and haven't, the theater people who are listeners and who haven't seen the movie yet. It was although you very successfully opened up that story and made it a real film. I it did make me miss theater because you can see you can see the roots of the play. You can see those four really great actors having a really great conversation and being, you know, sort of, you know, fighting at each other and joshing each other and you do doing all the things that you do in a good play, right?

[28:55] Kemp Powers: Oh, yeah. I mean, I love that. I love the theatricality of it, and I didn't want to lose that. I mean, it started off as a headache, but then everyone fell in love with it. Regina was like, oh my god, we have a 12-page scene to shoot, you know, and it's like Kemp wrote a 12-page talking, and I'm like, I know, but like it's so much about, but you know, again, now that I also direct as well, I feel even worse about it. But you know, you're not thinking that, like, oh wow, you gotta shoot that whole scene and then move the cameras and get coverage from a different angle, and they gotta do it again and again and again. And but I also think that like ignorance might be bliss because the fact that I did that, the performances we got were dynamite. They were just like, I really thought that it's interesting. Regina came out of that process, and I believe she's more, she's actually now interested in maybe doing stuff on stage.

[29:49] Gordon Cox: Great. You know, and it's like that's how awesome theater is.

[29:53] Kemp Powers: Yeah, yeah, you know, there's there's no, that's why I'll always write theater, you know. As crazy as times have been now, and as busy as I am, not three weeks ago, we were shooting a reading of a play at the Kirk Douglas Theater here in Los Angeles. And it was like first COVID protocols, and you know, it just because I think that theater allows us to tackle stories that no other medium allows us to tackle. Um, and whether it be in New York or London or anywhere. I mean, I've seen plays on subjects that movies are light years behind. Um, and I just, yeah, I just again theater was such a huge impact on me going back to such an early age because I didn't want to go to the theater the first time I went.

I was dragged, kicking and screaming to a theater, and I misbehaved, got in trouble, um, and as punishment had to perform at the band shell in Prospect Park in Brooklyn as part of my punishment. Um that's what my teacher did to me. And I tell you, that humiliating experience forced me to really dive into some shit. And that play was The Tempest, which is why all those years later I flew to London to see The Tempest. Yeah. Because that was a play that I butchered in front of my parents, my mom. And you play. Um, I think I was playing Prospero.

[31:20] Gordon Cox: Wow.

[31:20] Kemp Powers: Yeah. Yeah, it was just it was, but then it was like the other classes, each grade had to do a scene. And, you know, these the other classes all like we were we were sitting there with our scripts and just mispronounce like everything was wrong. And another class came in and like they were in costumes, like the Caliban had no shirt on, and he had like a thing around his head. And I was like, this is the most humiliating moment of my life I need to understand this play. Right. You know and it made me do a deep dive into theater and and that's the thing about theater that I love that people can sometimes forget is that theater has the ability like music to reach the kid who can't be reached and really change them. Really change them and that's what it was for me.

[32:07] Gordon Cox: This is a very busy time with those two films happening for you. Now what is on your plate coming up? I imagine you're gonna take a break after One Night in Miami lands, but after that what are you working on?

[32:20] Kemp Powers: No, I'm already up to my eyeballs in the next couple of things. I'm, uh, look man I got started on this late, you know this is a second career so I'm I'm 47 years old I don't feel like I can sit around on my ass for too long. I've got some I got so many ideas in my head and I want to try to get out as many of them as I possibly can while I'm upright on this earth. Whatever medium that fits them best. Like I said I have a play that we just recorded over at the Kirk Douglas that I think they're gonna screen it as part of the they had they of course because of COVID theaters have had to adapt. So the Kirk Doug Kirk Douglas started a program where they do stage readings of plays and they record them with three cameras edit it together and then they're gonna stream it and I believe that's going to be streamed in February.

[33:08] Gordon Cox: So I call what's that play called?

[33:08] Kemp Powers: Krista McAuliffe's Eyes Were Blue. Great. Um and it's you know it's set basically in Brooklyn in the 1980s. It's probably the most personal piece I've ever written. It's really inspired by, you know, my own childhood um going to school, junior high in South Brooklyn, what's, you know, Carroll Gardens Red Hook area um in the 80s. So, you know, I wanted to really write something about that. You know, got a great cast. Um Giovanna Depo, the Emmy nominee, is playing the lead in the reading. So um, yeah, we did that. Um a couple of film. There's one a screenplay I'm writing um for um for the Barack and Michelle Obama's company. Um so and and there's another project I'm doing for um Phil Lord and Chris Miller's company.

So again, they'll they'll be announced, I think, in the coming months or year or whatever, whenever they get announced. But um, you know, like Steve Jobs said, man, you can't you can't dwell on your success. You kind of have to move on and just get on to the next thing. And I'm a believer in that as well.

[34:14] Gordon Cox: Well, we are looking forward to seeing what's coming next for you, not only on screen, but especially for me anyway, on stage all over the country and in New York. We gotta get we gotta get One Night in Miami or another play of yours.

[34:26] Kemp Powers: That's the goal, man. I gotta say that is still the thing that I'm just it's um it's a bummer. I'm it's my home. And um, you know, and I write stuff with characters that are from that place, and I just it'll be it'll be nice one day when I can finally find a stage to get some work on.

[34:44] Gordon Cox: Yeah, I have I have faith that it will happen.

[34:46] Kemp Powers: Uh, thank you.

[34:48] Gordon Cox: Listen, thanks so much for your time. It was great talking to you.

[34:51] Kemp Powers: Great talking to you as well, Gordon.

[34:55] Gordon Cox: That was Kemp Powers, the screenwriter of Soul, now on Disney Plus, and One Night in Miami, which comes to Amazon Prime January 15th. If you like what you're hearing on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, you can rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It really helps us grow our audience of folks who love theater as much as you and I do. Or tell a friend. You can find past episodes of Stagecraft or subscribe on Apple Podcasts and on all the other pod places, including Spotify and on the Broadway Podcast Network, which is another great place to find more theater for your ears. I'll be back in two weeks with another new episode. Until then, find me on Twitter at GCOXVIDY. Thanks for listening and see you soon.