Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize
- Rachel McClintock
- May 4, 2025
- 1 min read
The 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which includes a $15,000 award, has been granted to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins for his play, Purpose. The winning work premiered at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.
The Pulitzer committee lauded Purpose as "a play about the complex dynamics and legacy of an upper-middle class African American family whose patriarch was a key figure in the Civil Rights movement. A skillful blend of drama and comedy that probes how different generations define heritage.”
Finalists for the Drama Prize
The finalists for this year's prestigious award were:
Oh, Mary! by Cole Escola: This play premiered Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. The committee described it as "a zany portrait of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln’s family life whose outrageous humor also serves as an empathetic celebration of anyone who’s been marginalized or misunderstood."
The Ally by Itamar Moses: This work received its world premiere at The Public in New York City. It was praised as "a timely drama about activism, conflicting expectations, and moral responsibility on a college campus, probing American identity and the contradictions within progressive politics, using richly drawn characters with a deep emotional resonance.”
The jury for the 2025 Drama prize was chaired by playwright David Henry Hwang, and included Tanya Barfield, Rebecca Gilman, Helen Shaw, and José Luis Valenzuela.