Jack Joseph Powell

1945 - 2025

Jack Joseph Powell
07/09/1945 - 07/30/2025
Consummate man of the theatre Jack Joseph Powell took his final bow on July 30, 2025. Born in San Francisco in 1945, Jack moved with his family to San Anselmo as a child. He graduated from Drake (now Archie Williams) High, where he was introduced to theatre, playing Conrad Birdie in the West Coast premier of Bye, Bye Birdie in a homemade gold lame suit. He continued to act and direct at Drake and later at Ross Valley Players.
Jack continued his education and acting at College of Marin and San Francisco State before enlisting in the Air Force during the Vietnam years, working as a nuclear missiles analyst; honorably discharged as a sergeant.
He arrived in New York City in 1973 and was soon on tour with the National Shakespeare Co., followed by summer stock in Hyde Park, NY, a season designing props for the Roundabout Theatre, and two years with Hedgerow Theatre in Pennsylvania, where one critic compared his voice to the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Returning to New York, he did two seasons Off Broadway at CSC Rep., learning his lines while walking from his Lexington Ave. apartment down to 14th St.
Jack moved back to the Bay Area in 1983 and began a career with Marin Theatre Co., Marin Shakespeare, Theatre Artists of Marin, AlterTheater, San Francisco Shakespeare, CenterRep
(playing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol for eight years), Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and Aurora Theatre, as well as PacRep in Carmel, and traveling south to Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts to play Norman in On Golden Pond and Col. Pickering in My Fair Lady.
A true jack-of-all-trades in theatre, he acted, directed, built sets, designed sound, and devised imaginative props, and was a meticulous craftsman with a love of wood. In everything, Jack was both knowledgeable and exacting, unflagging in his pursuit of perfection.
In the late 80s, he joined Yost Group to help create 3D Studio, 3D Studio Max, and Animator, all later sold to Autodesk. Jack tested the programs as they were developed, acting as the end user or, as Gary Yost called him, "the human in the group." When he was satisfied that a normal person could use them, he wrote the award-winning documents.
Jack was a familiar sight in Fairfax, walking up to eight miles a day, usually with his nose in a book from one of the many Little Free Libraries nearby, often charming shopkeepers out of a sweet treat. He was a champion bocce player and an adventurous traveler (British Isles, Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, Belize, and two grandparents' birthplaces in Norway and Alsace-Lorraine), though hopeless with languages - except for "ciao," which became his standard farewell.
Jack's final years were slowed somewhat by Alzheimer's, which stole neither his wry wit nor his ability to launch into Puck's Epilogue. Both wise-ass and whimsical, ironic and playful, ever-curious and ever in search of anything with sugar, Jack was a "most lovable, rascally curmudgeon," as one friend writes.
He was preceded in death by his father, Mervin Jack Powell; mother, Anita Irene Bohn Powell; and older sister, Pamela Powell Picken. Survivors include his younger sister, Joanne Powell Leach (husband Michael); nephews Taylor Leach; Ron Picken, and Ed Steele, and his beloved if sometimes exasperated wife of 48 (legal) years, Jessica Powell.
A November memorial is planned. Donations may be made to any Bay Area theatre still standing.