BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Phylicia Rashad bring ‘Purpose’ to Broadway

A dynamic duo of theatrical endowment — Tony Award winners Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Phylicia Rashad — is bringing the play “Purpose” to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater opening Feb. 25.

A analyzable play astir a fictional Illinois-based Black American governmental family and the Civil Rights movement, “Purpose” returns Jacobs-Jenkins to Broadway aft winning 3 Tony Awards successful 2023 for his intense, heavily-nominated household play “Appropriate.”

Inspired by Chicago’s Jackson household — arsenic successful activists Jesse and Jesse Jr.,” ‘Purpose’ is described arsenic a household play that examines the analyzable dynamics of the fictional Jasper household members, who indispensable face their pasts, their legacies, and header with household conflicts.

The formed includes Alana Arenas successful her Broadway debut arsenic Morgan Jasper; Glenn Davis arsenic Solomon “Junior” Jasper; Jon Michael Hill — who won a 2010 Tony nominee for Best Featured Actor successful a Play for his relation successful “Superior Donuts” — arsenic Nazareth “Naz” Jasper; LaTanya Richardson — who was a 2024 Tony Award nominee for producing “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch” — arsenic Jackson Claudine Jasper, Harry Lennix arsenic Solomon “Sonny” Jasper, and Kara Young — who won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress successful a Featured Role successful a Play for “Purlie Victorious” — arsenic Aziza Houston.

Jacobs-Jenkins has surely near his content connected the theatre world. He made his Broadway debut with “Appropriate” successful 2023 and promptly won a 2024 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for the work. Two of the playwright’s works — “Gloria” (2016) and “Everybody” (2018) — were nominees for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Jacobs-Jenkins was selected arsenic a prestigious MacArthur Fellow successful 2016.

Two-time Tony victor Rashad is breaking crushed with “Purpose,” making her Broadway directorial debut with the play aft a agelong and palmy acting vocation successful TV, films and connected Broadway. She had a shaper relation successful Tony Award-winning 2023 revival of Ossie Davis’ “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch” and racked up a slew of director’s credits implicit the years.

She’s directed before, but shaper and seasoned histrion Phylicia Rashad volition marque her directorial debut connected Broadway with “Purpose.”

Rashad besides won Tony Awards for Best Performance by an Actress successful a Featured Role successful a Play for “Skeleton Crew” successful 2022, and Best Actress successful a Play for her 2004 relation successful Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin successful the Sun.” Rashad — who directed the 2024 outpouring premiere of “Purpose” astatine the Steppenwolf Theatre Company successful Chicago — has prepared for her Broadway debut with years of directorial credits, among them “Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963,” a speechmaking to people the 50th day of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church successful Birmingham, Alabama; and the revival of “Our Lady of 121st Street” successful 2018 astatine the Signature Theatre successful Manhattan.

Among her directing works are respective revivals of playwright August Wilson’s plays, including “Fences” successful 2013 astatine the Long Wharf Theatre successful New Haven, Conn.; “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” successful 2016 astatine the Mark Taper Forum successful Los Angeles; and the 2013 accumulation of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” astatine L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum, which earned her an NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director.