PERFORMANCE DATES
Begins February 2025
WHERE
Hayes Theater
BEGINS FEBRUARY 2025 / HAYES THEATER
THE STEPPENWOLF PRODUCTION OF
PURPOSE
BY
BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS
DIRECTED BY
PHYLICIA RASHAD
From the Tony Award-winning playwright of Appropriate and directed by two-time Tony Award winner Phylicia Rashad comes Purpose.
For decades, the influential Jasper family has been a pillar of Black American Politics: civil rights leaders, pastors and congressmen. But like all families, there are cracks and secrets just under the surface. When the youngest son Nazareth returns home to Illinois with an uninvited friend in tow, the family is forced into a reckoning with itself, its faith, and the legacies of Black radicalism. Spirited, hilarious and filled with intrigue, Purpose is an epic family drama from one of the country’s most celebrated voices.
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Exact dates coming soon.
BY BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a Brooklyn-based playwright and producer and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. He received the 2024 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for Appropriate, which recently completed an acclaimed, record-breaking, 8-month run on Broadway. Other recent theatre credits include The Comeuppance (Signature Theatre Company, NYC; Almeida Theatre, London); Girls (Yale Rep); Everybody (Signature Theatre); War (Yale Rep; Lincoln Center/LCT3); Gloria (Vineyard Theatre); An Octoroon (Obie Award; Soho Rep, Theatre for a New Audience); and Neighbors (The Public Theater). He was showrunner, executive producer, and writer for HULU/FX’s drama series, “Kindred,” based on Octavia E. Butler’s groundbreaking novel. He currently teaches at Yale University and serves as Vice President of the Dramatists Guild council and on the boards of Soho Rep, Park Avenue Armory, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Dramatists Guild Foundation. Additional honors include a USA Artists fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, the MacArthur fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. He is currently writing the book for the upcoming stage adaptation of Purple Rain.
DIRECTED BY PHYLICIA RASHAD
Phylicia Rashad A two-time Tony Award® winner (A Raisin in the Sun and Skeleton Crew), Ms. Rashad’s directing credits include Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street, The Roommate, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), Immediate Family, Fences, A Raisin in the Sun and Four Little Girls. Producing credits include the recent revival of Ossie Davis’ Purlie Victorious on Broadway and PBS film, “The Old Settler.” Ms. Rashad currently serves as Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University.