Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
(Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)
Throughout the month of February, The Broadway Show is celebrating some of the theater industry’s most influential Black artists. This week, the spotlight is on Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
Jacobs-Jenkins is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award-winning playwright who made his Broadway debut last season with the family drama Appropriate. He’s back on Broadway this season with another family drama, Purpose, directed by Phylicia Rashad, and premieres his stage adaptation of Prince’s Purple Rain this spring in Minneapolis. “I am someone who believes that everything anyone ever writes is political because it expresses a point of view on how people should interact with each other and how meaning is described socially,” he told Broadway.com in 2023. “I don’t think you can ever escape writing issues.”
Learn more about Jacobs-Jenkins in the video below.
