Brenda Pressley to Join the Cast of PURPOSE on Broadway

Brenda Pressley will join the Broadway company of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play, PURPOSE, directed by Phylicia Rashad, beginning performances Tuesday, July 15th.  Ms. Pressley will assume the role of ‘Claudine Jasper.’
 
LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who originated the role of Claudine in the Broadway production and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Play as well as Drama League and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for her work, was previously scheduled to appear in the show through July 6th and has now extended by one week. She will give her final performance on Sunday, July 13th.
 
Steppenwolf’s production of PURPOSE, which also received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle and Drama Desk awards for “Outstanding Play,” has been extended through Sunday, August 31st at Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater (240 West 44th Street).
 
Ms. Pressley will join the current acclaimed ensemble which includes Tony Award nominees Harry Lennix, Jon Michael Hill, and Glenn Davis, Theater World Award Recipient Alana Arenas, and Two-time Tony Award-winner Kara Young.
 
For decades, 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.