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Video: Meet the Company of PURPOSE on Broadway
Jan 28, 2025
In just a few weeks, previews will begin on Broadway for Tony Award-winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' new play, PURPOSE, directed by Two-time Tony Award-winner Phylicia Rashad. Watch in this video as Jacobs-Jenkins and the whole cast chats more about what audiences can expect.
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If I am to have a swan song in this acting arena
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what better play to have service that for me, that the best play that I have read in a million years
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. Step and Wolfe's critically acclaimed production
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of Brandon Jacobs Jenkins' new play Purpose, which is directed by Felicia Rashad
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is coming to Broadway. And we drop by Splashlight Studios to catch up with a stellar company
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I was approached by Steppenwolf Theater Company about 10 years ago to, they said, you know, would you like to try to play on our ensemble? And I thought, yes
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of course, I do. You guys are the best actors of the country. And it started out as a play for
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Alana Aranis, Glenn Davis, and John Michael Hill, who were all in the show. And I knew that I
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wanted them to be in a family, and I wanted them to kind of play siblings. That's all I knew at the time. And then, you know, a million kind of readings and conversations and workshops
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later, this kind of story began to emerge. And we built it all together last spring in Chicago
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and here we are. Without giving too much away, what can you tell us about the play
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Well, purpose is about the Jasper family, which is a kind of political
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Chicago-based black family, and it takes place on the evening that the oldest son is returned from prison
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It's narrated by the younger brother who has kind of accidentally brought a friend from New York to the party Then they get stuck by a snowstorm and you know hilarity ensues drama ensues People clap at the end
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For me, the play is a return to the stage. I have not, in addition to what the themes are
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I hadn't been in a play since I was with my beautiful wife in this play
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Latani Richardson Jackson, at the Kennedy Center. So since 2008, I had not done a play until Glenn Davis
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my friend and boss invited me back. So it's a return. I think the play for me is
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I just said, Manner from Heaven, it's a gift that I have been given
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so that if I am to have a swan song in this acting arena
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what better play to have service that for me that the best play that I have read in a million years
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I think this play represents a few things for me, and that is when it's a return to stage
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with two of my closest friends. It's a, this is the 15th play that started at Steppenwolf Theater
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in Chicago to make it to Broadway. Where you are the artistic director
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Yes, yep. And my first that I'm, first that I'm a part of on that journey. And it's a
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it a return to the stage for me to New York It working with two of the most dynamic actresses I ever seen in terms of Kara and Latanya And jumping on stage with my mentor Harry Lennox So for me this is a dream come true in every sense
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And being directed by Miss Felicia Rashad and work with Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, a dream
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This play for me is about being inside of a question. I think he did a very powerful thing naming a play purpose
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And that's going to bring up a lot of questions for everybody. and everyone's going to have a different answer
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And I think that's the best of what art can do is get people thinking about something
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and ruminating it. And there aren't always clear answers in life. And I think watching the human chaos
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that ensues in this play is a gift to get to work on
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This play for me is a giant gift. The entire experience is a gift
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And it also, it's a, it's a gift. It's such a beautiful reflection of the gift of life
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and how everybody is given gifts and how I think that we possess these gifts
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to share with one another. I am overwhelmingly filled with gratitude to be in this incredible company
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to be working with Felicia Rashad, to be working with Brandon Jacob Jenkins
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Like this has been for a long time I wanted to work with him as a writer and I really happy that I finally this is finally the moment but like the correlations between the character and myself
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I've never truly been able to kind of step into someone who is, you know
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Aziza and I have very big differences, but feels so close to home as well
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and really somebody who I really aspire to be like in a lot of ways
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So I feel super grateful to continue to find and dig deep into the purpose of her
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and also in this world, in the world that we're creating on the stage
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Finally, what do you hope audiences take away from a playwright standpoint? What do you hope they walk away with what kind of conversation
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you hope they have. Oh, gosh. I mean, I want people to think about, I mean, I always love family
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dramas because it makes you think about the fact you're in a family, you know, and how, you know
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the experience of being a child, the experience of being a parent, a brother and a sister is something
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that you can't escape, it's something you live with. It just grows and grows and grows. And I think what I'm interested in this play in talking about is the way that our political moments
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and the moments we live through and history and American history shape us as, as emotional people
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as lovers, as fighters, as sons and lovers. I don't know. I just think it's
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It's about remembering that there's a relationship between your family life and your political world
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