Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' PURPOSE, Directed by Phylicia Rashad, Will Arrive On Broadway in 2025

BroadwayWorld has just learned that the acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of Purpose, written by Tony Award-winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and directed by Two-time Tony Award-winner Phylicia Rashad, will come to Broadway in spring 2025.

The production will begin previews on February 25, 2025 at The Helen Hayes Theater and will officially open in mid-March. Purpose will mark Ms. Rashad’s Broadway directing debut. She was last seen on Broadway in Skeleton Crew, for which she won a 2022 Tony Award.

Jacobs-Jenkins' work was last seen on Broadway last season with Appropriate, for which he earned a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Appropriate played its final performance on June 30, following 23 previews and 194 regular performances.

Though the play will play at the Helen Hayes Theater,  it is not a Second Stage production. Purpose is produced by David Stone, Debra Martin Chase, Marc Platt, LaChanze, Rashad Chambers, Aaron Glick, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Casting for the Broadway production will be announced in the coming months. The 2024 Steppenwolf cast featured: Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis, Jon Michael Hill, Ayanna Bria Bakari, Harry Lennix, and Tamara Tunie.

About Pupose

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.

PURPOSE was commissioned by and had its World Premiere on March 14, 2024 at Chicago’s legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where it received rave reviews. The production sold out its initial engagement and extension weeks, becoming one of the highest-grossing shows in Steppenwolf’s nearly 50-year history.

PURPOSE will feature scenic design by Todd Rosenthal, costume design by Dede M. Ayite, lighting design by Amith Chandrashaker, and sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen. Casting is by JC Clementz, CSA and Calleri Jensen Davis.

Bios:

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 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 inauguralTennessee Williams Award. He is currently writing the book for the upcoming stage adaptation of Purple Rain.

Phylicia Rashad (Director). 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; Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky; August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), and Fences; Paul Oakley Stovall’s Immediate Family; Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun; The Roommate; 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 is Dean Emerita of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is the nation’s premiere Ensemble Theater with 49 members who are among the top actors, playwrights and directors in the field. Thrilling, powerful, groundbreaking productions – from Balm in Gilead and Grapes of Wrath to August: Osage County, Downstate and The Brother/Sister Plays – have made this theatre legendary. Founded in 1976, Steppenwolf started as a group of teens performing in the basement of a church. Today, the company's artistic force remains rooted in the original vision of its founders: an artist-driven theatre, whose vitality is defined by its appetite for bold and innovative work. Every aspect of Steppenwolf is rooted in its Ensemble ethos, from the intergenerational artistic programming to the multi-genre performance series LookOut, to the nationally recognized work of Steppenwolf Education and Engagement which serves nearly 15,000 teens annually.

While grounded in the Chicago community, more than 40 original Steppenwolf productions have enjoyed success nationally and internationally, including Broadway, Off-Broadway, London, Sydney, Galway and Dublin. Steppenwolf also holds accolades that include the National Medal of Arts, 12 Tony Awards, and more. Led by Artistic Directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis, Executive Director Brooke Flanagan and Board of Trustees Chair, Keating Crown – Steppenwolf continually redefines the landscape of acting and performance.