The Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s production of the play “Purpose” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is headed to Broadway, it was announced Wednesday.
The show is slated to open next spring at the Helen Hayes Theater (240 W. 44th St.), with previews beginning Feb. 25 and an opening night in the middle of March.
Casting has not been officially announced but is expected to be substantially the same as the original Chicago production of a potent drama that, while fictional, suggested the travails of the family of the longtime civil rights activist and former presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson. A Broadway move was expected, given the critical and popular acclaim that greeted the premiere.
“I can’t believe it,” Jacobs-Jenkins said in a telephone interview, adding that he intended to keep revising the play, which was still being written long after the Chicago rehearsal process had begun. “This is very much about moving that Steppenwolf production, but I’d also be stupid not to take every opportunity not to improve the play.”
“This has been the best-case scenario for Steppenwolf,” said artistic director Glenn Davis. “We were able to commission one of the most accomplished writers of his generation and pair him with a director like Phylicia Rashad, one of the greatest artists of our time. Branden wrote a piece specifically for members of our ensemble, whose voices he was able to hear and knew how his lines should be falling out of our mouths. And we landed the plane and finished the play.”
The Steppenwolf ensemble members in the show are Jon Michael Hill, Alena Arenas and Davis himself. At Steppenwolf, Harry Lennix played the family patriarch whose values and history are a source of both pride and trauma for the rest of his family.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com