A dynamic duo of theatrical talent — Tony Award winners Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Phylicia Rashad — is bringing the play “Purpose” to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater beginning Feb. 25.
A complex drama about a fictional Illinois-based Black American political family and the Civil Rights movement, “Purpose” returns Jacobs-Jenkins to Broadway after winning three Tony Awards in 2023 for his intense, heavily-nominated family drama “Appropriate.”
Inspired by Chicago’s Jackson family — as in activists Jesse and Jesse Jr.,” ‘Purpose’ is described as a family drama that examines the complex dynamics of the fictional Jasper family members, who must confront their pasts, their legacies, and cope with family conflicts.
The cast includes Alana Arenas in her Broadway debut as Morgan Jasper; Glenn Davis as Solomon “Junior” Jasper; Jon Michael Hill — who won a 2010 Tony nominee for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role in “Superior Donuts” — as Nazareth “Naz” Jasper; LaTanya Richardson — who was a 2024 Tony Award nominee for producing “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch” — as Jackson Claudine Jasper, Harry Lennix as Solomon “Sonny” Jasper, and Kara Young — who won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for “Purlie Victorious” — as Aziza Houston.
Jacobs-Jenkins has surely left his impression on the theater world. He made his Broadway debut with “Appropriate” in 2023 and promptly won a 2024 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for the work. Two of the playwright’s works — “Gloria” (2016) and “Everybody” (2018) — were nominees for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Jacobs-Jenkins was selected as a prestigious MacArthur Fellow in 2016.
Two-time Tony winner Rashad is breaking ground with “Purpose,” making her Broadway directorial debut with the drama after a long and successful acting career in TV, films and on Broadway. She had a producer role in Tony Award-winning 2023 revival of Ossie Davis’ “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch” and racked up a slew of director’s credits over the years.
Rashad also won Tony Awards for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for “Skeleton Crew” in 2022, and Best Actress in a Play for her 2004 role in Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” Rashad — who directed the 2024 spring premiere of “Purpose” at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago — has prepared for her Broadway debut with years of directorial credits, among them “Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963,” a reading to mark the 50th anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama; and the revival of “Our Lady of 121st Street” in 2018 at the Signature Theatre in Manhattan.
Among her directing works are several revivals of playwright August Wilson’s plays, including “Fences” in 2013 at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn.; “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” in 2016 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; and the 2013 production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum, which earned her an NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director.
