“Damn Yankees,” a musical slated for a Broadway revival Spring 2027, was co-written by playwright Doug Wright and Will Power, chair and professor of theater & performance studies. The original 1955 production won multiple Tony Awards in 1956, including Best Musical. According to Power, “Damn Yankees” follows a middle-aged baseball fanatic who makes a deal with the devil so that his favorite team can finally beat the New York Yankees.
Power said he was invited to be a co-playwright for “Damn Yankees” by Wright, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play for his 2004 debut Broadway play “I Am My Own Wife.” According to Power the revival has been in the works since 2020, around when he became a professor at Occidental. Power said he and Wright are still revising the script, even after its pre-Broadway world premiere at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
“[Wright] saw a play of mine called ‘Fetch Clay Make Man‘, and he was like, ‘This is one of the greatest pieces about race and sports that I’ve ever seen,’” Power said. “When he was going to [rewrite] ‘Damn Yankees’, he wanted to bring in somebody who knows about sports and theater, so he brought me on.”
Power said the last revival for “Damn Yankees” on Broadway was over 30 years ago. According to Power, he and Wright were able to obtain permission for rewriting the whole show. Power said revision freedom depended on estates — the people who own the play in terms of copyright.
“When we make a decision, we have to get the blessing of 13 people; everybody has to agree,” Power said. “They really trust us because they know we’re trying to respect the original version.”
According to Power, the story is now set in the year 2000 and follows an African-American protagonist whose father was excluded from the major leagues. Power said they wanted to explore different modernized details, while keeping the same music and story.
“No one has ever rewritten the piece to this extent for a revival,” Power said. “If this goes well, this could point the way to how it might be done in the future with other pieces.”
Power said he loves teaching theater almost to the extent he loves playwriting. According to Power, he started teaching when he did workshops on hip-hop theater, a theater form he helped to develop.
“Seventeen years ago, I performed at Thorne and I taught a workshop,” Power said. “Two years later, [I did] a 56-week rehearsal with [Occidental] students and put on a show here at Keck; a number of years later, a [job opportunity] opened up and I applied, and then I got the position.”
Fiona Dosanjh (senior) said she took “Playwriting,” a 300-level theater course taught by Power. Dosanjh said Power’s career experiences created a unique class experience.
“He’s a very inspiring, energetic professor,” Dosanjh said. “It was very cool to be taught by someone who is just here for the love of the game.”
Samantha Lam (senior) said Power was her first academic advisor. Lam said she took the introductory theater course “From Page to Stage: Introduction to Reading and Writing for Performance” with Power, and worked with him when she was a stage manager in her first year.
“I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been able to approach him because he’s a really open, great guy and [is] always willing to share his knowledge about the theater world,” Lam said. “Even though I’m not a theater major, I still feel his mentorship has influenced me the most throughout my entire time at Oxy.”
Power said he has not found much time to reflect on his accomplishments between running the theater department and having a show on Broadway.
“[The other week] I got to New York on a Sunday morning and went to the Yankee Stadium, where they were going to announce the Broadway premiere,” Power said. “The very next morning, I had class and rehearsal.”
Power said he has a good feeling about his first time being on Broadway, he does not see it as an end goal, but Broadway had been on his mind since childhood.
“I saw my first Broadway show at 5 years old, and ever since then I was like, ‘I want to do this,’” Power said. “It took me 28 years from the time I moved to New York [in 1998] to finally get into Broadway. It’s a big dream.”
Contact Vivian Pei at vpei@oxy.edu
