Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company is pleased to celebrate the announcement by the Pulitzer Prize Board that playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Purpose, which enjoyed its world premiere at Steppenwolf in 2024 and is now playing a limited Broadway engagement at the Helen Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th St. in New York. Tickets are available at purposeonbroadway.com.
Steppenwolf Artistic Directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis comment, “Congratulations to the brilliant playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins on today’s 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama in recognition of Purpose, a play commissioned, developed and premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre. As we prepare to launch Steppenwolf’s 50th Anniversary Season, this honor underscores our company’s time-honored commitment to developing ensemble-driven, new works. Purpose now joins August: Osage County by ensemble member Tracy Letts as the second Steppenwolf-commissioned play to receive this prestigious honor.”
The Full Company of Purpose on Broadway. Photo by Marc J. Franklin.
Directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Phylicia Rashad, the Broadway production features Steppenwolf ensemble members Alana Arenas (The Bluest Eye, TV’s David Makes Man), Glenn Davis (off-Broadway’s Downstate, King James) and Jon Michael Hill (Broadway’s Pass Over, Superior Donuts, Netflix’s A Man in Full) joined by LaTanya Richardson Jackson (To Kill a Mockingbird, A Raisin in the Sun), Harry Lennix (TV’s The Blacklist, Broadway’s Radio Golf) and Tony Award winner Kara Young (Purlie Victorious, The Cost of Living, Clyde’s).
Today’s news comes on the heels of six 2025 Tony Award nominations for Purpose including Best Play, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play (LaTanya Richardson Jackson), Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Jon Michael Hill), Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Harry Lennix), Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Glenn Davis) and Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Kara Young).
Produced on Broadway by David Stone, Purpose was commissioned by and had its world premiere on March 24, 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.
About 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 with an uninvited friend in tow, the family is forced into a reckoning with itself, its faith and the legacies of Black political power and familial duty. Spirited, hilarious and filled with intrigue, Purpose is an epic family drama from one of the country’s most celebrated voices.
About Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a Brooklyn-based playwright and producer and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist (for his plays Gloria and Everybody). He received the 2024 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for Appropriate, which completed an acclaimed, record-breaking, 8-month run on Broadway earlier this year. 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 inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. He is currently writing the book for the upcoming stage adaptation of Purple Rain.
About Steppenwolf Theatre
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is the nation’s premier 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.
Steppenwolf’s Mission: Steppenwolf strives to create thrilling, courageous and provocative art in a thoughtful and inclusive environment. We succeed when we disrupt your routine with experiences that spark curiosity, empathy and joy. We invite you to join our ensemble as we navigate, together, our complex world. steppenwolf.org, facebook.com/steppenwolftheatre, twitter.com/steppenwolfthtr and instagram.com/steppenwolfthtr.
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