Kemp Powers – författare

25 February 1964: 22-year-old Cassius Clay, soon to be Muhammad Ali, has just won the world heavyweight boxing title. Instead of hitting the town, he chooses to celebrate in a Miami hotel room with three close friends - activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke and American football star Jim Brown.This fictional account of a real night imagines what might have happened in that tiny hotel room. As the Civil Rights movement stirs outside, and the melody of 'A Change is Gonna Come' hangs in the air, four men will emerge from that one night ready to define a new world.Kemp Powers' award-winning debut play One Night in Miami... deftly combines the personal and the political at a pivotal moment in history; it received the Ted Schmitt Award 2013 for its world premiere, and went on to be adapted into a critically acclaimed film directed by Regina King in 2020. It is published here in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series with a brand new introduction by Matthew Xia.

Before they were icons they were friendsThe world would come to know him as Muhammad Ali, but on 25 February 1964, a twenty-two-year-old Cassius Clay celebrated his world heavyweight title not by hitting the town, but in a hotel room with his three closest friends: activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke and American football star Jim Brown. To the outside world, they were American icons. But in that hotel room, here were four men who understood each other and their moment in history in a way that no one else could. With the Civil Rights movement stirring outside, and the melody of A Change is Gonna Come hanging in the air, these men would emerge from that room ready to define a new world.Kemp Powers's tough talking, in-your-face debut play premiered in LA in 2013 where it won the Ted Schmitt Award for outstanding world premiere of a new play along with three LA Drama Critics Circle Awards, four NAACP Theatre Awards and LA Weekly Theater Awards for playwriting. This edition was originally published to coincide with the European premiere at London's Donmar Warehouse in 2016 where it received critical acclaim. It was later adapted into a feature film, released in January 2021.