Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose, Directed by Phylicia Rashad, Will Open on Broadway in March 2025

The Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of Purpose, a new play by Tony Award winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, will open on Broadway in 2025. Two-time Tony Award winner Phylicia Rashad will make her Broadway directorial debut with the production, beginning previews February 25 and opening mid-March at the Hayes Theater. 

Purpose had its world premiere this past spring at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, directed by Rashad and starring Ayanna Bria Bakari, Harry Lennix and Tamara Tunie. The story follows the influential Jasper family, a pillar of Black American politics for decades: 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. 

Jacobs-Jenkins made his Broadway debut this past season with a revival of his family drama Appropriate (he previously contributed material to a 2022 Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth). The production won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, also earning a Tony Award for lead actress Sarah Paulson. Jacobs-Jenkins' other works include An Octoroon, Gloria (Pulitzer finalist), Everybody (Pulitzer finalist) and The Comeuppance. 

The Broadway creative team will include 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 for the Broadway production will be announced in the coming months.