Dallas playwright-performer Will Power has won a $275,000 national award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Power is currently an artist-in-residence at SMU and the creator of the musical, ‘Stagger Lee,’ which premiered at the Dallas Theater Center last year. Other winners of this year’s Doris Duke Artist Awards include choreographer Mark Morris, composer Henry Threadgill, who just won the Pulitzer Prize, and drag performer-playwright Taylor Mac. Mac made his Texas debut at the Undermain Theatre in 2010 and toured to the Eisemann Center last year with Mandy Patinkin in the vaudeville cabaret, ‘The Last Two People on Earth.’

The full release:

SMU MEADOWS THEATRE ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE WILL POWER
NAMED WINNER OF A NATIONAL 2016 DORIS DUKE ARTIST AWARD

Power Is One of 21 Performing Artists in Jazz, Theater and Dance To Receive $275,000 Each as Award Recipients

Will Power, theatre artist-in-residence at SMU Meadows School of the Arts, is one of 21 national performing artists announced as recipients of the fifth annual Doris Duke Artist Awards, presented by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF). Appointed in recognition of their creative vitality and ongoing contributions to the fields of dance, jazz and theater, awardees will each receive $275,000 in flexible, multi-year funding as well as financial and legal counseling, professional development activities and peer-to-peer learning opportunities provided by Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the awards.

Other recipients include Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, choreographer and MacArthur Fellowship awardee Mark Morris and Pulitzer-winning musician Henry Threadgill. (Full list available in DDCF press release: http://ddpaa.org/docs/DDArtist2016PressRelease.pdf)

Maurine Knighton, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, said, “The foundation is pleased to support this new class of Doris Duke Artists. The composers, musicians, theater artists, choreographers and playwrights who comprise this cohort are visionaries who have already made important contributions to their respective fields. We hope these awards enhance their capacities for exploration and experimentation, in keeping with Doris Duke’s adventurous spirit. DDCF looks forward to their continued creativity, as their work is not only important to the creative sector, but vital to the vibrancy of our society, as well.”

Will Power is an award-winning playwright and performer who combines classic folklore with modern elements. His work sends audiences on a path of self-discovery by discussing complex themes and attempting to answer the questions people are afraid to ask. His musical Stagger Lee (2015) spanned the 20th century, tracing mythical characters in their quest to achieve the American Dream. Its deep-seated themes of racism and power were translated through Joplin-inspired tunes, R&B and hip-hop. Other plays include Fetch Clay, Make Man, which recently enjoyed a successful run Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop; Steel Hammer with SITI Company (Humana Festival); The Seven (winner of Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, New York Theatre Workshop, La Jolla Playhouse); Five Fingers of Funk! (Children’s Theatre Company); Honey Bo and The Goldmine (La Jolla Playhouse); and two acclaimed solo shows, The Gathering and Flow, which toured over 70 cities in the U.S., Europe and Australia.

Power’s numerous other awards include a United States Artist Prudential Fellowship, the TCG Peter Zeisler Memorial Award, a Jury Award for Best Theatre Performance at the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival and the Trailblazer Award from The National Black Theater Network.

“I am thrilled and honored to receive a 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award,” said Power. “As an artist, the road is often unpredictable and nothing is guaranteed. I have tried to the best of my ability to travel this road and create stories the best I can. When you live life as an artist, you try to sustain your faith in what you’re doing, and you pray that you will also be able to adequately take care of your family. This award allows me to do just that – it is a public acknowledgment of what I am trying to say while giving me some long-term support to provide and care for those I love. I am forever grateful to receive this award from the Doris Duke Foundation.”
Power won the Meadows School of the Arts’ Meadows Prize in 2011, an international arts residency launched in fall 2009. During his residency at SMU, Power worked with Meadows student actors and designers to create a new theatre work, Alice Underground, a modern spin on the tale of Alice in Wonderland. His work in Dallas as winner of the Meadows Prize was a partnership between the Meadows School and the Dallas Theater Center. Power was subsequently named an artist-in-residence at the Meadows School and is also the Andrew W. Mellon Playwright in Residence with the Dallas Theater Center, a position awarded through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and HowlRound. Stagger Lee, which was produced and premiered by the Dallas Theater Center in 2015, was partially developed in workshops in collaboration with the Meadows School as a part of Powers’ Meadows Prize residency.

Power also conceived and directed The Shakespeare Project at SMU in 2013, which fused the rhythms of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter with the contemporary beats of hip-hop, and used that rhythm to explore key Shakespearean characters. The Shakespeare Project was an extension of a work Power created for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the London Olympics in 2012, a hip-hop version of Caliban’s speech from The Tempest.

His numerous film and television appearances include The Steven Colbert Report (Comedy Central), and Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason (PBS).
Power was a guest of the U.S. State Department on five separate occasions, traveling to South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. On these trips and others, he taught community workshops in shantytowns, worked with poets in former regimes of the Soviet Union and lectured at various libraries, grammar schools and colleges.

Power is currently working on Wade in the Water, which he describes as a “Nuvo-Gospel Musical,” or a work that brings a more contemporary viewpoint to a traditional Biblical or gospel tale. It is being commissioned and developed at Center Theater Group in Los Angeles.

About the Doris Duke Artist Awards
Each recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award receives $275,000 – including an unrestricted, multi-year cash grant of $225,000, plus as much as $25,000 more in targeted support for audience development and as much as $25,000 more for personal reserves or creative exploration during what are usually retirement years for most Americans. Artists will be able to access their awards over a period of three years under a schedule set by each recipient. Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, will also offer the awardees the opportunity to participate in professional development activities, regional gatherings, and financial and legal counseling – all designed to help them personalize and maximize the use of their grants.

To qualify for consideration by the review panels, all the Doris Duke Artists must have won grants, prizes or awards on a national level for at least three different projects over the past 10 years, with at least one project having received support from a DDCF-funded program. The panel chose the artists based on demonstrated evidence of exceptional creativity, ongoing self-challenge and the continuing potential to make significant contributions to the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theater in the future.

The other winners of the 2016 awards are Kyle Abraham (Dance); Sharon Bridgforth (Theater); Dave Douglas (Jazz); Faye Driscoll (Dance); Janie Geiser (Theater); Miguel Gutierrez (Dance); Fred Hersch (Jazz); Wayne Horvitz (Jazz); Taylor Mac (Theater); Dianne McIntyre (Dance); Jason Moran (Jazz); Mark Morris (Dance); Lynn Nottage (Theater); Thaddeus Phillips (Theater); Aparna Ramaswamy (Dance); Matana Roberts (Jazz); Jen Shyn (Jazz); Wadada Leo Smith (Jazz); Morgan Thorson (Dance); and Henry Threadgill (Jazz).

About the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
Based in New York City, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation was founded in 1996. Its activities are guided by the will of tobacco and oil heiress Doris Duke (1912-93), who endowed the foundation with financial assets that totaled approximately $1.79 billion as of December 31, 2014. Its mission is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and child well-being, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties. The Arts Program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation focuses its support on contemporary dance, jazz and theater artists, and the organizations that nurture, present and produce them. For more information, visit www.ddcf.org.

About Creative Capital
Creative Capital supports innovative and adventurous artists across the country through funding, counsel and career development services. Their pioneering approach – inspired by venture-capital principles – helps artists working in all creative disciplines realize their visions and build sustainable practices. Since 1999, Creative Capital has committed $40 million in financial and advisory support to 511 projects representing 642 artists, and their Professional Development Program has reached 12,000 artists in more than 600 communities. For more information, visit www.creative-capital.org.