Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Directed by Phylicia Rashad, Will Play Broadway

Fresh off his Tony Award win for Appropriate, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is preparing to come back to Broadway again with a new play, Purpose. The show will be directed by two-time Tony winner Phylicia Rashad in her Broadway directing debut. It will begin previews February 25, 2025, at the Helen Hayes Theater, with an opening date to be announced.

The play follows the fictional Jasper family who, for decades, have 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. The show's cast will be revealed at a later date.

Purpose had its world premiere earlier this spring at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company. As Jacobs-Jenkins told Playbill in a previous interview, the family at the center of the play are "sort of wrestling with the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and how it lives now or does not live now...That movement gave a certain generation a sense of purpose that I don’t know that the children in this play feel connected to.”

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 and Calleri Jensen Davis.

Purpose is produced by David Stone, Debra Martin Chase, Marc Platt, LaChanze, Rashad Chambers, Aaron Glick, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Though the show will play the Hayes, it is not a Second Stage Theater production. See photos from the Steppenwolf production below.