Kemp Powers facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Kemp Powers
Powers in 2023
Born	(1973-10-30) October 30, 1973 (age 51) Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Education	Howard University
Occupation	Screenwriter playwright director
Years active	2012–present
Notable work	One Night in Miami One Night in Miami... Soul Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Kemp Powers is an American writer and director. He writes plays, movie scripts, and directs animated films. He is well known for his play One Night in Miami. He also helped make the movie of the same name in 2020.

Powers also co-directed the animated movies Soul (2020) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). His script for One Night in Miami... was nominated for an Oscar. When he worked on Soul, he became the first African-American person to co-direct a Disney animated movie.

What He Does

Kemp Powers is a talented person who works in different parts of the entertainment world. He writes plays for the theater and scripts for movies. He also directs films, especially animated ones.

His Start in Writing

Powers wrote a short film called This Day Today in 2012. After that, he wrote his play One Night in Miami in 2013. This play was later made into a movie by director Regina King.

In 2017, Powers joined the team to write for the TV show Star Trek: Discovery. In 2018, he wrote his second play, called Little Black Shadows.

Working with Pixar and Disney

In 2018, Powers helped write the script for Pixar's movie Soul. He worked with Pete Docter and Mike Jones on the story. He also co-directed Soul with Pete Docter. This was his first time directing a movie.

Powers went to Howard University. Because of his work on Soul, he made history. He became the first African-American co-director for both Disney and Pixar movies.

In 2020, Powers also hosted a podcast called Soul Stories. In this podcast, he talked to people who worked on the Soul movie. They shared stories about their careers and how the movie was made.

More Recent Work

In 2021, Powers wrote his third play, Christa McAuliffe's Eyes Were Blue. That same year, he started directing the animated movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. He directed it with Joaquim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson.

In March 2023, his fourth play, The XIXth (The Nineteenth), was shown for the first time. This play tells the story of two Black American sprinters. They raised their fists in protest at the 1968 Summer Olympics games.

Powers is also set to write and direct a crime movie called Lunik Heist. This will be his first time directing a live-action film.

Movies and TV Shows

This table shows some of the movies and TV shows Kemp Powers has worked on.

Plays He Wrote

• One Night in Miami (2013)
• Little Black Shadows (2018)
• Christa McAuliffe's Eyes Were Blue (2021)
• The XIXth (The Nineteenth) (2023)

Awards and Nominations

Kemp Powers has won and been nominated for many awards for his work. Here are some of them:

See also

In Spanish: Kemp Powers para niños