I have composed the score to the Australian Premiere of PURPOSE – directed by Zindzi Okenyo produced by Sydney Theatre Company
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★★★★ Stage Noise
Purpose
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Zindzi Okenyo
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
“Brilliant and funny and serious and complex and powerful” Oprah Winfrey
In an exciting coup, the most awarded new American play of 2025 is heading this way. Fresh from winning the 2025 Tony Award for Best Play, the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2025 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, Purpose comes directly from Broadway to Sydney Theatre Company in the first new production to be staged since its premiere.
An influential African American family stands firmly on the highest pedestal of American politics; producing congressmen, celebrity pastors and civil rights leaders. But when their estranged, youngest son, Nazareth, returns home with an uninvited house guest, decades of secrets and unresolved tensions threaten to topple their empire.
Channelling great American playwrights from Arthur Miller to Tracy Letts (August: Osage County), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ (Appropriate) masterstroke is “a sparring match, crackling with sharp punchlines, pulling us into an all-out brawl” (New York Magazine).
Directed by Zindzi Okenyo (Sweat) and featuring actors Grace Bentley-Tsibuah, Deni Gordon, Markus Hamilton, Tinashe Mangwana, Maurice Marvel Meredith and Sisi Stringer, Purpose is a “merciless dissection of hypocrisy – you may have trouble catching your breath from laughing so hard” (The New York Times).
Director Zindzi Okenyo
Designer Jeremy Allen
Lighting Designer Kelsey Lee
Composer & Sound Designer James Peter Brown
With
Grace Bentley-Tsibuah
Deni Gordon
Markus Hamilton
Tinashe Mangwana
Maurice Marvel Meredith
Sisi Stringer
