Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' PURPOSE Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Other finalists included: Oh, Mary!, by Cole Escola, and The Ally, by Itamar Moses.
By: Nicole Rosky May. 05, 2025
The Pulitzer Prize Board has just announced that Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose has won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Other finalists included: Oh, Mary!, by Cole Escola, and The Ally, by Itamar Moses.
In addition, New York Magzine theatre critic Sara Holdren was a finalist in the Criticism category.
Purpose was commissioned by and had its World Premiere on March 24, 2024 at Chicago’s legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where it became one of the highest-grossing shows in Steppenwolf’s nearly 50-year history. It is currently running on Broadway at the Hayes Theatre and was recently nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Play.
In Purpose, 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.
The Pulitzer Prizes were established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher, who left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the School of Journalism in 1912 and to establish the Pulitzer Prizes, which were first awarded in 1917.
Recent winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama include Primary Trust (2024), English (2023), Fat Ham (2022), The Hot Wing King (2021), and A Strange Loop (2020). Learn more about past winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the history of the prizes.
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