LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Harry Lennix, Kara Young & More Will Star in PURPOSE on Broadway

Complete casting has been announced for the highly-anticipated Broadway transfer of Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s production of Tony Award-winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ new play, PURPOSE, directed by Two-time Tony Award-winner Phylicia Rashad.

The Broadway cast of PURPOSE will feature Two-time Tony Award nominee LaTanya Richardson Jackson (To Kill a Mockingbird, A Raisin in the Sun), Harry Lennix (TV’s “The Blacklist,” Broadway’s Radio Golf), Steppenwolf ensemble member Jon Michael Hill (Broadway’s Pass Over, Superior Donuts, Netflix’s “A Man in Full”), Steppenwolf ensemble member and Co-Artistic Director Glenn Davis (off-Broadway’s Downstate, King James), Steppenwolf Ensemble member Alana Arenas (The Bluest Eye, TV’s “David Makes Man”), and Tony Award winner Kara Young (Purlie Victorious, The Cost of Living, Clyde’s). Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis, Jon Michael Hill, and Harry Lennix all appeared in the play’s acclaimed world premiere at Steppenwolf in March 2024.

Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, The Comeuppance), and directed by Phylicia Rashad (Skeleton Crew, A Raisin in the Sun) in her Broadway directorial debut, PURPOSE will play a limited 19-week run at the Helen Hayes Theater (240 West 44th street), beginning previews February 25th, officially opening on March 17th, and running through July 6, 2025.

A pre-sale with TodayTix begins Monday, December 9th and can be found at TodayTix. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Thursday, December 12th.

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.

The production received three 2024 Equity Jeff Awards (Chicago’s equivalent of the Tony Awards): Outstanding Production of a Play, Outstanding New Work (Branden Jacobs-Jenkins), and Outstanding Director of a Play (Phylicia Rashad).PURPOSE is produced by David Stone, Debra Martin Chase, Marc Platt, LaChanze, Rashad Chambers, Aaron Glick, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

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.

PURPOSE features 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, CSA and Calleri Jensen Davis. The Production Stage Manager is Tiffany Robinson. General Management is by 321 Theatrical Management.

ABOUT THE CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM

LaTanya Richardson Jackson is a two-time Tony Award-nominated stage and screen actress, director and producer. Her onstage Broadway credits include “Lena Younger” in the 2014 revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (Tony nomination, Best Actress in a Play), as “Calpurnia” in Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, and as “Bertha Holly” in the 2009 revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. She became the first woman to direct an August Wilson play on Broadway with the 2022 revival of The Piano Lesson, starring Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington and Danielle Brooks, which received a Tony nomination for Best Revival of a Play. She was also a co-producer on the 2023 revival of Purlie Victorious (Tony nomination, Best Revival of a Play). Her extensive theater work includes Shakespeare in the Park’s Taming of the Shrew, For Colored Girls…, Spell #7, Casanova, Unfinished Women, Stop Reset, and August Wilson’s Century Cycle. Her screen credits include the HBO limited series Show Me A Hero (NAACP Image Award nomination, Best Actress), ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, Netflix’s Luke Cage, FX’s Damages, Blue Bloods, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Lumet’s 100 Centre Street and the films Freedomland, Losing Isaiah, The Fighting Temptations, U.S. Marshals, Juanita, Mother and Child, and Nicole Holofcener’s You Hurt My Feelings. As a screen producer, she executive produced the limited series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey and the EPIX docuseries Enslaved; and as a filmmaker, she directed and starred in the acclaimed 2000 short film Hairstory, which will be revived for a Restoration West Coast Premiere this December at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of Spelman College where she and her husband recently opened the LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Samuel L. Jackson Performing Arts Center.

Harry Lennix: Broadway: Radio Golf. Off-Broadway: Titus Andronicus. Chicago: A Raisin in the Sun, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Permanent Collection, Othello, The Great Gatsby, King Hedley II (Mark Taper Forum). Theatre Directing: The Glass Menagerie (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), A Small Oak Tree Runs Red (Congo Square Theatre and Billie Holiday Theatre), Permanent Collection (Robey Theatre Company), Unjustifiable Acts (Goodman Theatre). Select Film & Television: Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Man of Steel, Ray, The Matrix franchise, Love & Basketball, Titus, The Five Heartbeats. TV: The Blacklist, Billions, Keep the Faith, Baby, Dollhouse.

Jon Michael Hill joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 2007. Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Purpose, Leroy and Lucy, True West (also Galway Arts Festival), Pass Over, Constellations, Head of Passes, The Hot L Baltimore, The Tempest, Kafka on the Shore, The Unmentionables. Broadway: Superior Donuts, Pass Over. Off-Broadway: The Refuge Plays (New York Theatre Workshop) Pass Over (Lincoln Center). Film: Pass Over, Widows, In The Radiant City, No Pay, Nudity. Television: A Man in Full (Netflix), Elementary (CBS), Detroit 1-8-7 (ABC), Eastbound and Down (HBO), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC) and Person of Interest (CBS).

Glenn Davis is an actor, producer and Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, alongside Audrey Francis, where he has been an ensemble member since 2017. His Steppenwolf credits include Downstate, The Christians, You Got Older, The Brother/Sister Plays, Head of Passes, King James (also Mark Taper Forum), Describe the Night, and, most recently, Purpose. Broadway credits include Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (also Kirk Douglas Theatre, Mark Taper Forum). Off-Broadway credits include Transfers (MCC Theatre), Wig Out! (Vineyard Theatre), Downstate (Playwrights Horizons, Outer Critics Circle Nomination), and King James (MTC). Other regional credits include Moscow x6 (Williamstown Theatre Festival). International credits include Downstate (National Theatre, UK); Edward II, The Winter’s Tale and As You Like It (Stratford Festival); Othello (The Shakespeare Company). Television credits include Billions, 24, The Unit, Jericho and The Good Wife. Glenn is an Artistic Associate at the Young Vic in London and at the Vineyard Theatre in New York. He is also a partner in Cast Iron Entertainment, a collective of artists consisting of Sterling K Brown, Brian Tyree Henry, Jon Michael Hill, Andre Holland and Tarell Alvin McCraney. Cast Iron is currently in residence at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. In 2021, Glenn founded The Chatham Grove Company along with his producing partner Tarell Alvin McCraney.

Alana Arenas joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 2007 and created the role of Pecola Breedlove for the Steppenwolf for Young Adults production of The Bluest Eye, which also played at the New Victory Theater Off-Broadway. Recent Steppenwolf appearances include Purpose, the Steppenwolf for Young Adults production of Monster, The Fundamentals, Marie Antoinette, Tribes, Belleville, Head of Passes, Good People, Three Sisters, The March, Man in Love,Middletown, The Hot L Baltimore, The Etiquette of Vigilance, The Brother/Sister Plays, The Tempest, The Crucible, Spare Change and The Sparrow Project. Other theatre credits include Disgraced (American Theater Company), The Arabian Nights (Lookingglass Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Kansas City Repertory Theatre), Eyes (eta Creative Arts), SOST (MPAACT), WVON (Black Ensemble Theater) and Hecuba (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Television and film credits include David Makes Man, Canal Street, Crisis, Boss, The Beast, Kabuku Rides and Lioness of Lisabi. She is originally from Miami, Florida, where she began her training at the New World School of the Arts. Alana holds a BFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University. PURPOSE marks Ms. Arenas’ Broadway debut.

Kara Young recently starred on Broadway as ‘Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins’ in Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, for which she won a 2024 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play. She had made history prior to her win, as her third consecutive Tony nomination makes her the first Black performer to be nominated three years in a row. Additionally, her performance in Purlie Victorious has earned her an Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk Award and Drama League nomination. Young was most recently seen starring in MCC Theater’s Table 17. In 2022, she made her Broadway debut in Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, for which she earned a Theatre World Award and her first Tony nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play. In 2023, she was Tony nominated for her work in Cost of Living and won an Obie Award for her performance in the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Twelfth Night. Kara can next be seen starring in the feature film Is God Is. She can also be seen in Boots Riley’s I’m a Virgo for Prime Video, which earned her an Indie Spirit Nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance. She appeared in HBO Max’s “The Staircase” as well as Netflix’s “The Punisher” and starred in the winning Sundance Short, Hair Wolf. Kara also starred in MCC Theater’s All The Natalie Portmans, for which she received a Lucille Lortel Award Nomination. Her other stage credits include Halfway Bitches Go Straight To Heaven, New Englanders, Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d and Pretty Hunger.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a Brooklyn-based playwright and producer and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. 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.

Phylicia Rashad (Director). A two-time Tony Award winner (A Raisin in the Sun and Skeleton Crew), Ms. Rashad’s directing credits include Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street; Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky; August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), and Fences; Paul Oakley Stovall’s Immediate Family; Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun; The Roommate; and Four Little Girls. Producing credits include the recent revival of Ossie Davis’ Purlie Victorious on Broadway and PBS film, “The Old Settler.” Ms. Rashad is Dean Emerita of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University.

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.