Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company celebrated the announcement by the Pulitzer Prize Board that playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Purpose, per a press release.
The production enjoyed its world premiere at Steppenwolf in 2024 and is now playing a limited Broadway engagement at the Helen Hayes Theater. Directed by two-time Tony winner Phylicia Rashad, the Broadway production features Steppenwolf ensemble members Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill, joined by LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Harry Lennix and Tony winner Kara Young.
Steppenwolf Artistic Directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis stated, “Congratulations to the brilliant playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins on today’s 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama in recognition of Purpose—a play commissioned, developed and premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre. As we prepare to launch Steppenwolf’s 50th-anniversary season, this honor underscores our company’s time-honored commitment to developing ensemble-driven, new works. Purpose now joins August: Osage County, by ensemble member Tracy Letts, as the second Steppenwolf-commissioned play to receive this prestigious honor.”
Jacobs-Jenkins’ plays include Girls, Everybody, War, Gloria, Appropriate, An Octoroon and Neighbors, Queerty noted. Jacobs-Jenkins won his first Tony last year for Appropriate, his first Broadway play.
Earlier this year, Jacobs-Jenkins, a MacArthur Fellow, was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025, joining an esteemed group of Black queer men who have received the honor. He married partner Cheo Bourne in 2018; the couple has two children.
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