Purpose Tickets

As with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ other plays, Purpose is intellectual, stirring, and high-octane in thrills and drama. In this new play, audiences meet the legendary Jasper family, an influential Illinois family whose members have been community and national leaders as Civil Rights activists, politicians, and pastors. For decades, they have shaped Black culture, but like every family, secrets and cracks linger just beneath the gleaming surface. As the play unfolds, the youngest son returns home and brings an uninvited friend in tow. His arrival stirs up new questions, forcing the family to confront its esteemed cultural legacy, faith, and how they have shaped Black radicalism.

As fierce as it is hilarious, this new play provides no quick answers but instead showcases a family contending with its identity, and how its members may move forward. Audiences can expect biting exchanges, volcanic political debate, and plenty of laughs along the way in this New York premiere.

What to watch for

• Director Phylicia Rashad became the first Black actress to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, which she won for her role in the revival of A Raisin in the Sun. She won her second Tony Award for her performance in Skeleton Crew.
• Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a Pulitzer finalist for Gloria and is also the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” grant.
• Earning raves, Purpose is “a blistering production with explosive, knee-buckling intensity” per the Chicago Sun-Times.
• Steppenwolf, the theatre company that originated this work, is known for premiering other such esteemed plays, including August: Osage County, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep.