Where there’s a Will, there’s also Tupac and Biggie, says playwright/performer Jacob Ming-Trent. His one-man show, How Shakespeare Saved My Life, premiers at Berkeley Rep this month, and challenges the assumption that a 400-year-old Brit genius’s work can’t intersect with the rhythms of the modern urban street.

In a phone interview, Ming-Trent said that although he comes from a literary family—his father was a playwright, his grandmother a writer—he struggled to find his authentic voice. By 2018, when his father died, he still hadn’t written anything. But when he visited his father’s favorite coffeehouse, a woman came up to him and said, “Your dad gave me a message to give to you.” The message was, basically, “Get writing.”

In the play, Ming-Trent portrays his introduction to Shakespeare. “I walked into the wrong classroom,” he said during a recent interview, “and they were studying Shakespeare. They had me do a speech,” which he nailed, and he began to understand why the work still resonates.

Much later, he was working in the Massachusetts Berkshires with the theater group Shakespeare and Company, and started writing stories for what was going to be a cabaret. But the stories were “a wild, crazy mess,” he said, and didn’t fit the cabaret format. So he sent 16 pages to the Folger Shakespeare Library, and they agreed on the spot, he said, to commission its development into a play.

“Very early in the Folger workshop, [they reaffirmed] that I had something, and should continue forward with it,” he said. The character of the Father evolved, and the story of his family’s journey evolved and became integral to the narrative. The musical elements came to the fore.

“Shakespeare was an urban poet. Biggie and Tupac are urban poets,” Ming-Trent said. “They lived 400 years apart, but [we can find] similar rhythms in their work.” He also noted that, “Tupac was a big fan of Shakespeare.” The concept of creating intersectionality is important to Ming-Trent as an artist.

In a Substack post by Kim Bradley titled “Who Wrote It: Shakespeare or Tupac?”, she writes, “Tupac studied Shakespeare, jazz, and ballet at the Baltimore School for the Arts. [he] was the self-identified rose that grew from concrete; a poetic, delicate, deep-thinking soul born into a harsh reality. He used his artistic talents to explore the polarities present in his life, his voice a symbol of resistance and hope to those marginalized by a systemic lack of opportunity.”

Ming-Trent’s favorite Shakespearean character is the rascally knight Falstaff. “I love Falstaff. He’s beautifully flawed,” Ming-Trent said. “Some of Shakespeare’s characters get deified, but he is human. He is OK with being made fun of.” Falstaff epitomizes, Ming-Trent said, the life concept of “love a lot, eat a lot, and accept our flaws.”

Asked if he thought Falstaff was also a tragic figure, in that he’s discarded by Prince Hal when Hal becomes Henry V, Ming-Trent said “no,” adding, “He understands that Henry should do what he’s doing.”

Music still plays a large part in “How Shakespeare Saved My Life,” but it will not be live. Instead, Ming-Trent said, it is being designed by Jake Rodriguez, who has also created some original music for the show. “He’s doing an exceptional job, combining jazz, gospel and hip-hop,” Ming-Trent said.

“How Shakespeare Saved My Life” is being directed by the Rep’s former artistic director, Tony Taccone, who famously commissioned Tony Kushner’s legendary Angels in America and co-directed its world premiere while working at the Eureka Theatre.

Ming-Trent said he’s aware some audience members may see the piece as a “white savior” play. “Others,” he said, “will see it as a piece of rebellion against standards and restrictions.”

It’s important to him that the play aids in finding community and building, during the performance, what he calls a congregation. “Every night, we will seek to build community,” he said. “I will be asking questions of the audience—and some of them may answer. The ‘fourth wall’ will be coming down.”

‘How Shakespeare Saved My Life,’ Berkeley Rep, Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Previews Jan.23-25, 27; plays through March 1. Post-show discussions, Feb. 8, 12, 17. 510.647.2949. www.berkeleyrep.org