Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a playwright and a professor in the practice of theater and performance studies in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his play “Purpose.”
The play, which explores the complex dynamics of a prominent Black American family in Chicago led by a pastor with ties to the Civil Rights movement, won in the Drama category.
In announcing the award Monday, the Pulitzer Board described “Purpose” as a “skillful blend of drama and comedy that probes how different generations define heritage.”
The play premiered at the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago in 2024. The Broadway production opened at the Helen Hayes Theater in March. It was also nominated for six Tony Awards, including for best play.
His plays “Everybody” (Signature Theater) and “Gloria” (Vineyard Theater) were both Pulitzer finalists.
Jacobs-Jenkins, who is also a commissioned artist at Yale Repertory Theatre, received the prestigious prize less than a year after he won his first Tony for “Appropriate,” a play that also teases out a family drama, this time within the walls of a former plantation house in Arkansas. The drama won for Best Revival of a Play.
In a recent interview, Jacobs-Jenkins said he was finishing writing “Purpose” while rehearsing “Appropriate,” and that the two are “conjoined on some level.” In “Purpose,” he said, “there are intentional echoes that you might hear. It’s really about honoring what I think is truly the most American form of drama, which is the family drama, and finding new ways to tell it, new people to tell it on.”
The Broadway production of “Purpose” is directed by Phylicia Rashad, a Tony Award-winning actress also well known for her role on the NBC sitcom “The Cosby Show.”
Jacobs-Jenkins joined the Yale faculty in 2021.
Yale Rep produced the world premieres of two plays by Jacobs-Jenkins: “War” (2014) and “Girls” (2019).
“Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is among the most daring playwrights of his generation, deftly undoing fixed ideas about history, race, politics, and drama itself,” said Marc Robinson, the dean of humanities for FAS, as well as the Malcom G. Chace ’56 Professor of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies and English and professor of American studies in FAS and professor in the practice of dramaturgy and dramatic criticism at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
“His innovative plays engage theater history even as they expand the possibilities of the artform,” Robinson said. “He is also, not least, an exceedingly generous teacher: We are lucky to have him in our classrooms.”
“We’re thrilled to see Branden’s outstanding play ‘Purpose’ honored with a Pulitzer Prize,” added Steven Wilkinson, dean of FAS. “He is a deeply talented artist, and we — students and colleagues alike — are grateful to be able to learn from and teach alongside him here at Yale.”
The Pulitzer Prize was established in 1917 from funds endowed by journalist and newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Prizes are awarded annually in 21 categories.
Jackie Sibblies Drury, a lecturer in playwriting at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play “Fairview.”
Other recent Pulitzer winners on the Yale faculty include Sarah Stillman, a lecturer in English and head of the Yale Investigative Reporting Lab, who won the 2024 Pulitzer for Explanatory Reporting for her reporting at The New Yorker; historians Beverly Gage (who won the prize for Biography in 2023), Greg Grandin (General Nonfiction, 2020), and David Blight (History, 2019); and Yale Law School’s James Forman Jr. (General Nonfiction, 2018).
